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Shuttle Trivia Answers! |
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OK! You have tried your hand at our trivia questions, either
from recalling from the top of your head or checking out the Shuttle web site. Now, here
are the answers...(some of them anyway!) 1. How many Shuttles' (total) have been built? Can you name them? There have been 6 Shuttles built. Their names, in the order they were built are Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. Enterprise was built as the prototype.Never flew in space, but was used for testing It rolled out of the hanger in 1976, and testing took place in 1977. Enterprise was also displayed around the world as the next in space flight vehicles. It is now in storage awaiting the construction of a museum annex that would house it and numerous other large historic aircraft. Columbia was the first Shuttle in Space and flew the first 5 missions starting in 1981.
Challenger was the third built, second in space, and of course everyone remembers the tragedy. Discovery made her first flight into space in August 1984. Atlantis made her first flight into space just 14 months later, October 1985. Endeavour is the newest in the Shuttle fleet, debuting her flight into space 1992. Endeavour was built to replace the Challenger. Because it was built to replace the Challenger, and because Challenger had a wonderful teacher onboard, NASA created a contest involving schools. Students were asked to submit names for this spacecraft. Endeavour won. 2 How many Shuttles are flying right now? No, we don't mean literally. We mean, how many do they use, or how many are in their fleet? Well, we gave you the answers above! 4! 3. Can you name them? (think about it, we bet you can!) By reason of deduction: Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. 4. How many Shuttles have flown into space at one time or another? uhhh...5! 5. What was the longest Shuttle Mission? Ah ha! Gotcha.....now you had to do your research! In 1996, Columbia STS 78..... 16 days, 21 6. Where do they land? (And an answer of 'on the ground' will not do!) Florida, at Kennedy if they are lucky. Weather conditions can sometimes keep them up for a day. Edwards AFB is the alternative. When Shuttles land at Edwards it is usually because the weather at Kennedy is not expected to clear. We find out where they are going to land when we get an email from NASA saying Edwards ground crew is being called up. (e-mail from NASA? We will tell you how you can get on their mailing list. Or, check out http://shuttle.nasa.gov ) 7. Are all the Shuttles built identical? Pretty well. There are some "minor" differences which we will be highlighting. Want to see the details of the shuttle? Check out: http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_coord.html#sts_body This gives you an extensive overview of the shuttle, and it's booster rockets. Lots of material folks.
8. How long does 1 orbit take? Time can be in minutes. Knowing that, how many sunrises do they see in a 24 hour period? (This is something they all comment about!) This is a good one for your kids to do some math with! 90 min per orbit....give or take a few....
ok, so we were a bit off again! Thanks to Roger Balettie (former Flight Dynamics Officer at NASA) he corrects us by saying:
Thanks Roger! And yes! We are interested in hearing first hand accounts of your years at NASA! awesome... Now, knowing that, how fast are they traveling? 18,000 mph.....roughly.... Roger also adds:
geez, at that rate, you need a case of Draminine! Just kidding!
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