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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Muroc Army Air Base is renamed in 1948. What is its new name?
(a) Kennedy Army Air Base.
(b) Cape Canaveral.
(c) Edwards Air Force Base.
(d) George Air Force Base.

2. What is the most difficult routine in military flying?
(a) Carrier landings.
(b) Formation flying.
(c) Instrument-only flying.
(d) All-weather flying.

3. What do the engineers see as the most difficult, challenging, and pioneering part of the project?
(a) The flight itself.
(b) The technology.
(c) The courage necessary to fly in the capsule.
(d) The flying capsule.

4. Who is the biggest practical joker among the volunteers?
(a) Gus Grissom.
(b) Wally Schirra.
(c) Alan Shepard.
(d) Pete Conrad.

5. What is the Navy-calculated probability that a career Navy pilot will die in an aircraft accident?
(a) 56%
(b) 7%
(c) 38%
(d) 23%

Short Answer Questions

1. What is housed at the Holloman Air Force Base?

2. Why does Janet Conrad support her husband's decision to join the astronaut program?

3. How much time passes after the press conference before the astronauts are though of as national heroes?

4. Which of the astronauts does not live with his family on or near the base, but houses his family 120 miles away from the base and lives in the base's Bachelor Quarters?

5. What is the name Yeager gives to his plane?

Short Essay Questions

1. The engineers tend to feel that the glorification of the astronauts has really gotten out of control. Why do they feel that way?

2. According to the author, why does every pilot sound the same and talk with a lilting, vaguely Southern-sounding drawl?

3. Describe what the chapter's title of "On the Balcony" refers to.

4. What is the begrudging consensus finally reached from the Konakai Séance regarding their "off hours" behavior?

5. In detailing the experiences of the astronauts, the author states that "everywhere they went in their travels people stopped what they were doing and gave them a certain look of awe and sympathy." Awe is easily understood. Why do they look at them with sympathy?

6. In 1952 at Edwards Air Force Base, 62 Air Force pilots died in the course of a 36-week training session. In 11 weeks of combat training at Nellis Air Force Base, 22 pilot trainees were killed. In Pete Conrad's own class in Florida, 10 out of 20 had been killed. In the opinion of the pilots, these rates of death are considered "extraordinary," yet they really are not. Why?

7. Name three tests conducted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on the pilots.

8. As the number of killed pilots rises, how does that affect the mood of Pete Conrad?

9. The morning after the press conference, the newspapers are full of stories about the astronauts. What do the stories highlight?

10. Describe Jane Conrad's nightmares and hallucinations?

(see the answer keys)

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