Valerie Thomas
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40 free Valerie Thomas trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Valerie Thomas spent more than three decades at NASA, helped the world read the first satellite pictures of its own farmland and forests, and still found time to patent an optical invention that makes images appear to hang in the air. Her story starts with a curious child whom nobody thought to encourage. This quiz gathers the fun facts people look for: her childhood and schooling, the Landsat years, the illusion transmitter and how it works, the networks she ran, her awards, and the mentoring she has done since retiring. It suits students working on a Black History Month or Women's History Month project, teachers who want a ready-made classroom round, and anyone who enjoys the stories behind space science. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Before joining NASA in 1964, Valerie Thomas had seen which machine only in science fiction movies?
A computer
A computer was just a movie prop to Thomas until NASA hired her to write programs. She then set out to learn everything she could about the machines.
Q 02Which object appeared to keep glowing with its power removed at a 1976 exhibit that inspired Valerie Thomas?
A light bulb
A light bulb seemed to shine even though it had been unscrewed from its socket. The trick relied on a second, hidden one and a curved mirror, and it set Thomas experimenting.
Q 03Which crop did LACIE, the satellite experiment Valerie Thomas led at NASA in 1974, aim to forecast worldwide?
Wheat
Wheat harvests were the target: LACIE showed that Landsat images could predict yields around the globe. Thomas headed a team of about 50 people on the project.
Q 04SPAN, the NASA science network Valerie Thomas managed from 1986 to 1990, grew into part of which global system?
The Internet
The Internet counts SPAN among its ancestors. Under Thomas the network grew from about 100 linked machines to roughly 2,700 around the world.
Q 05Which hip-hop artist tweeted about Valerie Thomas to millions of followers during Black History Month in 2021?
Chance the Rapper
Chance the Rapper shared her name, photo and achievements with his millions of followers, introducing the NASA inventor to a younger generation.
Q 06Which celebrated 1986 visitor to Earth's skies was studied over Valerie Thomas's SPAN network?
Halley's Comet
Halley's Comet returns only about every 76 years, so researchers made the most of 1986 by sharing findings over SPAN, which Thomas ran as project manager.
Q 07Valerie Thomas was one of only two women in her college class to major in which science?
Physics
Physics was a rare choice for women in the early 1960s, yet Thomas excelled at it. NASA hired her as soon as she graduated in 1964.
Q 08Around age eight, Valerie Thomas borrowed a library book written for boys about which technical subject?
Electronics
Electronics fascinated her, but her father never helped with the projects in The Boy's First Book on Electronics. It sat untouched until it was due back.
Q 09After retiring from NASA in 1995, Valerie Thomas took up which job in Maryland schools?
Substitute teacher
Substitute teacher is an unusual second act for a NASA manager, but Thomas has spent decades steering young people, especially young women, toward science.
Q 10Valerie Thomas was born in 1943 in which port, the largest city in the state of Maryland?
Baltimore
Baltimore was still segregated when Thomas grew up there, and her high school had only recently been integrated when she arrived.
Q 11Which historically Black university in Maryland did Valerie Thomas graduate from in 1964?
Morgan State
Morgan State University was still called Morgan State College in her day. Thomas shone at maths there after nobody at her high school had pushed her toward advanced classes.
Q 12Which early programming language did Valerie Thomas teach herself in order to check the quality of Landsat data?
Fortran
Fortran let her write a small checking program far faster than before. It became an official quality-control tool that colleagues called the ValDump.
Q 13Which kind of mirror sits at both the sending and receiving ends of Valerie Thomas's illusion transmitter?
Concave mirrors
Q 21In Valerie Thomas's early years at NASA, on which storage medium did programmers typically enter their code?
Punch cards
Punch cards were typed up on a keypunch machine, Thomas recalled, and nobody had a terminal at their desk: the mainframe sat in another building.
Q 22Which invisible band of light do the Landsat satellites Valerie Thomas worked on use to gauge crop health?
Infrared
Infrared sensors see what eyes cannot, and the false-colour Landsat pictures built from them give farmers strong clues about how their fields are faring.
Q 23Valerie Thomas's LACIE project followed the 1972 'Great Grain Robbery', when which country bought up American grain?
The Soviet Union
Concave mirrors can form an image that seems to hang in front of the glass, unlike flat ones, whose reflections appear to sit behind it.
Q 14At which NASA centre in Maryland did Valerie Thomas work from 1964 until retiring in 1995?
Goddard Space Flight Center
Goddard Space Flight Center was her base for 31 years, apart from one spent at NASA Headquarters. She also mentored the students who worked there each summer.
Q 15Fresh from college in 1964, Valerie Thomas was hired by NASA for which job?
Data analyst
Data analyst was her first title, and it meant writing programs that turned raw satellite signals into something a scientist could read.
Q 16Landsat, the NASA programme Valerie Thomas joined in 1970, was originally known by which name?
Earth Resources Technology Satellite
Earth Resources Technology Satellite, or ERTS, was the name on the first craft at its 1972 launch. The friendlier Landsat arrived in 1975.
Q 17Landsat, which Valerie Thomas worked on for over a decade, is run jointly by NASA and which other US agency?
U.S. Geological Survey
The U.S. Geological Survey's director proposed an Earth-watching satellite back in 1965, a year after Thomas joined NASA.
Q 18What kind of high school did Valerie Thomas attend, where nobody steered her toward advanced maths classes?
All-girls
An all-girls school, Western High, had only just been integrated when she enrolled. It is the oldest public high school for girls still open in the United States.
Q 19What kind of images was Valerie Thomas's illusion transmitter, patented in 1980, built to send?
Three-dimensional
Three-dimensional pictures that seem to float in space were the goal, made with ordinary light instead of the lasers such effects usually needed.
Q 20Valerie Thomas's SPAN network aided study of which atmospheric threat, first reported over Antarctica in 1985?
The ozone hole
The ozone hole was revealed by British Antarctic Survey scientists a year before Thomas became SPAN's project manager, and the network carried the research that followed.
The Soviet Union bought about 18 million tonnes of American grain after its own harvest failed, and food prices jumped. LACIE grew out of the wish to see such failures coming.
Q 24From which institution in the US capital did Valerie Thomas earn a master's in engineering administration in 1985?
George Washington University
George Washington University awarded the degree in the same year that NASA put Thomas in charge of the hardware at its space science data centre.
Q 25In which field did Valerie Thomas earn a doctorate in 2004, nine years after retiring from NASA?
Educational leadership
Educational leadership suited her second career: the degree followed decades of mentoring students and speaking in schools.
Q 26Which NASA honour did Valerie Thomas, a tireless mentor of minority and female students, receive?
Equal Opportunity Medal
The Equal Opportunity Medal recognised a career in which Thomas made hundreds of visits to schools and national meetings as a role model for young scientists.
Q 27Valerie Thomas's floating pictures are often likened to which images, also used as security marks on credit cards?
Holograms
Holograms are normally recorded with laser light, but her invention produced a similar floating effect using mirrors and a video link.
Q 28In which Alabama city, home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, did Valerie Thomas defend her LACIE work?
Huntsville
Huntsville hosted the readiness review, where Thomas arrived with a 15-minute talk and instead faced 45 minutes of grilling before a packed auditorium.
Q 29Which distinction does Landsat, the Earth-imaging satellite programme Valerie Thomas helped start, hold?
The longest-running
The longest-running programme of its kind, Landsat has imaged the planet since 1972, two years after Thomas joined the team preparing it.
Q 30LACIE, the NASA project Valerie Thomas led in the 1970s, stands for Large Area Crop what Experiment?
Inventory
Inventory was the point: LACIE set out to tally crops from orbit, with a system designed to process 100 test sites a day.