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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 13, "The Operational Stuff".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Cape Canaveral's new function?
(a) It is the new medical testing center.
(b) It is the launching center.
(c) It is the unmanned space center.
(d) It is the new training facility.

2. What political event leads to Project Mercury being thought of, for the first time, as potentially expendable?
(a) The establishment of political special interest groups.
(b) The launch of another Sputnik satellite.
(c) The public relations nightmare created by the Edwards' pilots.
(d) The election of John F. Kennedy as the country's new President.

3. What is the nickname given to Project Mercury by the top pilots at the base?
(a) Monkeys in Space.
(b) The Flying Chimpanzees.
(c) Spam in a Can.
(d) Corpses in a Capsule.

4. When Jane Conrad realizes the cavalier manner in which the pilots discuss their killed comrades, what does she liken their discussion to?
(a) Politics.
(b) Lectures.
(c) Debates.
(d) Sports.

5. What is the nightmare that Jane Conrad has repeatedly?
(a) That Jane is in the pilot's seat of a doomed plane.
(b) That a figure is coming up the walk to tell her that her husband had been killed.
(c) That a test plane will crash into their house.
(d) That her husband leaves her.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the astronauts commands the least star power?

2. What does Gus want Betty to remember when she flies down to the Cape?

3. What is focused on as being the pilots' best qualification for their selection to the Project Mercury astronaut program at the press conference?

4. Who is the scheduled backup astronaut for the first manned orbital flight?

5. How many test pilots are in the original group in Jacksonville?

(see the answer key)

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