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50 free Space Shuttle trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
For thirty years the Space Shuttle was how America got to orbit, and this quiz covers the whole programme from Nixon's 1972 go-ahead to Atlantis's last landing in July 2011. It starts with the machine itself: the three main engines, the boosters that gave 85 percent of the thrust and parachuted into the Atlantic, the orange tank that was only orange because paint weighed 600 pounds, the fragile silica tiles, Mach 25 re-entry, the 60-foot payload bay and the Canadian arm that reached into it. Then the fleet, ship by ship: Enterprise, renamed by Star Trek fans and never flown in space; Columbia and its 28 missions; Challenger, Discovery's 39 flights, Atlantis and its Woods Hole namesake, and Endeavour, named by schoolchildren after Captain Cook's ship. The people follow: John Young and Bob Crippen on STS-1, Sally Ride, Guion Bluford, Christa McAuliffe, Eileen Collins, Story Musgrave on all five orbiters and John Glenn back in orbit at 77. Then the hard parts: 73 seconds, O-rings and the Rogers Commission; foam, a left wing and the skies over Texas. Hubble, Mir, Buran and the museums round it out. Easy questions suit anyone who watched a launch on TV; the expert tier asks about payload-bay dimensions, the New Year software rule and the cost per launch. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Shuttle, its orbiters and its missions, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Between 1981 and 2011, how many missions did the Space Shuttle fleet fly in total?
135
Five orbiters flew in space; a sixth, Enterprise, never left the atmosphere.
Q 02What did the programme's official abbreviation STS stand for?
Space Transportation System
The name came from a 1969 plan led by Vice President Spiro Agnew for a whole family of reusable spacecraft, of which only the Shuttle was funded.
Q 03On what date did the Space Shuttle launch for the first time, on mission STS-1?
April 12, 1981
It was exactly 20 years after Yuri Gagarin's first human spaceflight.
Q 04Which two astronauts flew STS-1, the first Space Shuttle mission?
John Young and Robert Crippen
It was the first time NASA had put a crew aboard a spacecraft on its very first flight; the mission lasted two days.
Q 05Which US president approved development of the Space Shuttle in January 1972?
Richard Nixon
NASA settled on the final design two months later and awarded the orbiter contract that August.
Q 06Which company built the Space Shuttle orbiters?
North American Rockwell
Separate contractors built the external tank and the solid rocket boosters.
Q 07The first orbiter, Enterprise, was originally going to be given what name?
Constitution
It was to be unveiled on Constitution Day, September 17, 1976, until Star Trek fans wrote to President Ford.
Q 08Why was the prototype orbiter named Enterprise?
A letter campaign by Star Trek fans
Gene Roddenberry and most of the original series cast attended the roll-out ceremony.
Q 09Enterprise never flew in space; what was it used for in 1977?
Approach and Landing Tests
It was released from the back of a Boeing 747 five times to glide to landings at Edwards Air Force Base.
Q 10Which orbiter was the first to fly in space?
Columbia
It was named after the sloop Columbia Rediviva, the first American ship to circle the globe, and after the Apollo 11 command module.
Q 11Which orbiter, built in 1991 to replace Challenger, was named after Captain Cook's ship?
Endeavour
Its British spelling comes straight from HMS Endeavour; it flew 25 missions from 1992 to 2011.
Q 12Challenger was named after HMS Challenger, a British corvette that led what kind of voyage in the 1870s?
Global marine research
The Apollo 17 lunar module had also been named Challenger.
Q 13Which orbiter flew the most missions, 39 over 27 years?
Discovery
It carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit and flew both 'return to flight' missions after the two disasters.
Q 21At roughly what speed did the orbiter begin re-entry, at an altitude of 120 km?
About Mach 25
It then glided, unpowered, to a runway landing at Kennedy or Edwards.
Q 22When an orbiter landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, how was it returned to Florida?
Piggyback on a modified Boeing 747
NASA had two Shuttle Carrier Aircraft; the first was originally built for American Airlines.
Q 23How big was the orbiter's payload bay?
About 15 by 60 feet
The size was dictated by the Air Force's spy-satellite requirements; the bay doors doubled as radiators in orbit.
Q 14The Space Shuttle stack at launch had the orbiter, two solid rocket boosters and what else?
An expendable external tank
The tank held the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for the main engines and was the only part not reused.
Q 15Why was the external tank orange rather than white on most missions?
Its foam insulation was left unpainted to save weight
The first two tanks were painted white; skipping the paint from STS-3 saved about 272 kg (600 lb).
Q 16Which company developed the RS-25 main engines mounted at the orbiter's tail?
Rocketdyne
They were the first throttleable, reusable rocket engines; a rival protested the 1971 contract and delayed work for most of a year.
Q 17What share of the Shuttle's thrust at liftoff came from the two solid rocket boosters?
85 percent
They burned for about two minutes, then parachuted into the Atlantic to be recovered and reused.
Q 18What became of the solid rocket boosters after burnout, about two minutes after launch?
Parachuted to sea for reuse
They were the largest solid-propellant motors ever flown until 2022 and the first designed for reuse.
Q 19Which company in Brigham City, Utah, manufactured the solid rocket booster motor segments?
Thiokol
After the Challenger disaster the booster joints were redesigned to seal at any temperature.
Q 20The orbiter's underside was protected on re-entry by tiles made mainly of what?
Silica ceramic
The LI-900 tiles were so light and fragile you could crush one by hand; the nose cap and wing edges used tougher reinforced carbon-carbon instead.
Q 24The Shuttle's robotic arm was supplied by which country and nicknamed accordingly?
Canada (Canadarm)
Built by Spar Aerospace in Toronto, it was first tested in orbit on STS-2 in 1981.
Q 25Who funded Spacelab, the pressurised lab module flown in the payload bay on 28 missions?
Europe (ESA)
Its first full mission was STS-9 in 1983, and it studied astronomy, microgravity and life sciences.
Q 26What was the typical size of a Space Shuttle crew?
Seven
STS-61-A flew with eight; the four early test flights carried only a commander and pilot.
Q 27Why did NASA never schedule a Shuttle flight to span December into January?
Its software could not handle the date rollover
The flight software would have needed the orbiter's computers to be reset at midnight on December 31.
Q 28Who became the first American woman in space, aboard Challenger on STS-7 in June 1983?
Sally Ride
At 32 she was also the youngest American to fly, and she later served on both accident investigation panels.
Q 29Who became the first African American in space, on Challenger's STS-8 mission in 1983?
Guion Bluford
STS-8 was also the Shuttle's first night launch and night landing.
Q 30On January 28, 1986, Challenger broke apart how long after liftoff?
73 seconds
The entire crew was killed and the fleet was grounded for over two years.