Space trivia

8 space trivia questions, from easy to hard. Tap a question to see the answer. They're real questions from Rubicon, where you type the answer yourself and an AI judge reads what you meant.

This set covers Astronauts & Life in Space, Commercial Spaceflight & the New Space Age, Eclipses & the Night Sky, Missions & Spacecraft, Rockets, Orbits & Space Junk, Telescopes & Observatories and The Space Race.

Questions and answers

  1. Easy Why do astronauts attach Velcro strips to their tools inside a space station?

    In weightlessness, unsecured objects drift away, so astronauts use Velcro to keep tools fixed to walls or suits.

  2. Easy What is the name of the private capsule that first carried humans to the International Space Station?

    The Crew Dragon capsule, developed by SpaceX, was the first private spacecraft to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.

  3. Easy Why does building brand-new rockets for every mission drive launch costs up?

    The high manufacturing cost of precision engines and metal structures dominates expenses compared to the relatively cheap fuel.

  4. Medium Why does recovering and flying rocket boosters multiple times drastically reduce the total price of space missions?

    The engines and airframe represent most of the build expense, so reusing them eliminates the need to build new hardware.

  5. Medium What handheld device did Ed White use to navigate outside Gemini 4, improving on Alexei Leonov's earlier drift?

    Ed White used a handheld compressed-gas thruster gun to actively steer and propel himself during his spacewalk.

  6. Medium Approximately what is the total diameter of the James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror?

    The primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope measures approximately 6.5 meters across.

  7. Hard Why did engineers place MESSENGER into an elongated elliptical orbit around Mercury instead of a close circular path?

    A highly elliptical path let the probe cool down far from Mercury's blazing hot surface.

  8. Hard Why did ancient Babylonian observers track roughly eighteen years between sky events instead of simply expecting an eclipse every single full or new moon?

    Because the Moon's tilted orbit means it only aligns with Earth and the Sun when crossing specific nodal points.

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