I have never done a contest on CT before, but I have had the joy of winning a couple...so I wanted to give back and I thought it would be fun to hold my own.
One of my biggest interests is the space program and specifically manned space flight. So, I thought it would be fun to have a trivia contest about space flight. The big inspirational saying all the astronauts tell the kids who dream of that for a career is to “Reach for the Stars”…so I think star notes are an appropriate prize.
Fortunately, I worked at a bank a year ago and amassed quite a circulation built collection of $1 star notes. All of them are circulated but they were still fun to find. So, I will be giving away 6 $1 star notes to the winner of this contest. Again they are all circulated (some more than others), there is a picture at the end of this post of the prize notes.
The prize notes
Series 2003 Chicago G02664106*
Series 2003 Chicago G07006587*
Series 2003 Chicago G08267025*
Series 2003A New York B06914136*
Series 2003A Atlanta F11495140*
Series 2003A Kansas City J00696941*
NEW PRIZE
A generous member of CT has kindly contributed a note to the grand prize for this contest. This member wishes to remain anonymous, but has contributed 2003 $1 Chicago Star Note G01446814* graded Gem Unc 65 by PMG. See pic below and Thank You to the contributor! 
Here are the rules. In this thread there are a series of trivia questions related to either the American or Soviet/Russian manned space programs. Please answer each question and submit the answers to me by
PM only. Posting answers in this thread will result in disqualification from the contest and possibly a new series of questions for everyone. The contest will end on December 31st at 11:59pm PST. You can only submit your answers once, once submitted your answers can’t be edited. But, there is no special treatment given for answers submitted earlier. The only deciding factor is percent correct. Questions with multiple parts will be worth the 1 point per part…so, partial correct answers do help. There are 20 total questions but a total of 41 parts…so each person’s score will be out of 41.
I know the questions are pretty tough, but I wanted it to be challenging. You don’t have to get them all right to win. Just do your best.
In the event of a tie, I reserve the right to either do a drawing of some kind to determine the final winner or do a second series of questions as a tie breaker (but, there will be fewer questions in that case). The number of tied participants and the interesting in this contest will determine the tie breaker.
Questions
1. Astronaut Deke Slayton was selected in America’s first class of astronauts (the “Mercury 7”) and was slated to be the fourth American to fly in space. What was the name he had chosen for his flight? For what reason was he grounded?
2. Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet Cosmonaut and the first man to fly in space. His second space flight assignment as a backup mission commander. He franticly tried to get the prime crew grounded and be substituted into the flight. Why did he do this? What was the name of the cosmonaut he wanted to replace?
3. Name all the men who walked on the moon.
4. Name all of the American space shuttles. What is the current status of each?
5. What was unique about the Soviet flight Soyuz T-15?
6. The governing body of international air and space flight records is the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FIA). According to the record guidelines of the FIA, who was the first man to successfully complete a space flight?
7. What was the name of the Apollo 9 command module? Why did the crew choose this name?
8. How many crews has the Soviet/Russian manned space program lost during a mission? How many cosmonauts were killed? What mission(s) was lost? What caused the accident(s)?
9. Who was originally selected to serve as the Apollo command module pilot (CMP) for the Apollo Soyuz Test Project? Why did he lose his seat? What previous mission(s) did he fly? What career did he choose after he left NASA?
10. Who was the original lunar module pilot on Apollo 17? Why did he lose his spot on the mission?
11. Why did the first two space shuttle launches look “weird?”
12. What special feature was equipped on the first 4 space shuttle flights for crew safety?
13. In March of 1965, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. Why was he almost unable to enter the airlock following the walk? What did he do to solve this problem?
14. Name the 5 main objectives of the Gemini program?
15. What “mutiny” type action did the crew of Skylab 4 take? Did any of the crew ever fly in space again?
16. Had it flown, what would the space shuttle mission STS-62-A been the first to do? What was the purpose of this?
17. Who was originally to command the flight to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope? What was the flight’s designation? What shuttle was to be used? Why was the mission cancelled?
18. Who was the original commander of STS-46? Why did he lose his seat on the flight?
19. Most rocket and capsule type launch vehicles have an emergence escape rocket tower on top of the capsule. This is designed to pull the capsule away from the rocket in the event of a serious failure. How many times has this system been used? What event(s) resulted in it being needed?
20. What was the name of the Soviet space shuttle? How many times did it fly? How big was its crew?
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