Quiz: Apollo 11, the First Moon Landing

Estimated Completion Time
1 min
Quiz: Apollo 11, the First Moon Landing
Image: Heritage Space/Heritage Images/Getty Images

About This Quiz

It's been more than 50 years since humans first landed on the moon. Pull up a lunar module and let's see how much you know about Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and the adventure that immortalized them.
Apollo 11 launched out of which U.S. state?
Texas
Florida
The Apollo 11 spacecraft left the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on July 16, 1969.
California

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Fill in the Blank: Apollo 11's lunar module was famously nicknamed _________.
the Arrow
the Patriot
the Eagle
After the Eagle broke away from the spacecraft's command module, it delivered Armstrong and Aldrin to the moon's surface.

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Before he took the reins on Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong commanded which of the following NASA missions?
Gemini 8
Gemini 8, which launched in 1966, was the first mission to ever successfully link two spacecraft in Earth's orbit.
Apollo 7
Friendship 7

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When the Eagle finally reached the moon, where did it land?
at the lunar north pole
in the "Sea of Tranquility"
A dark-looking basin on the moon's near side, the Sea of Tranquility is water-free, despite its popular name. (Early astronauts mistook gray patches on the moon for seas.)
in the "Sea of Fecundity"

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Which Apollo 11 astronaut was born outside of the United States?
Neil Armstrong
Michael Collins
The son of a U.S. major general, Collins was born in Rome, Italy.
Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin

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Armstrong and Aldrin left which of the following instruments behind on the lunar surface?
a seismometer set
It only functioned for 21 days, but the gadget laid the groundwork for later breakthroughs in lunar seismology.
a windsock
a hygrometer

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Which of these historical artifacts were taken aboard Apollo 11's lunar module?
Galileo's first telescope
parts of a Wright brothers' airplane
Authentic wood and fabric samples from the historic Wright Flyer plane hitched a ride on the Eagle.
a copy of the Declaration of Independence

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True or false: Then-president Richard Nixon attended the Apollo 11 launch.
true
false
But while Armstrong and Aldrin were exploring the moon, they received a long-distance phone call from Tricky Dick himself.

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After they returned to Earth, how much time did the crew spend in quarantine?
3 days
11 days
21 days
NASA spent three weeks monitoring their astronauts for potential contagions before allowing the men to reintegrate with society. The next two Apollo missions also involved quarantine but after that the requirement was dropped as nothing unusual was ever found.

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What did Neil Armstrong famously say when he first stepped on the moon's surface?
"Houston, we have a problem."
"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
Many TV viewers thought Armstrong left out the "a" when he spoke but he often insisted the quote only makes sense when it's included. "Magnificent desolation" was Buzz Aldrin's first impression of the moon.
"Magnificent desolation."

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You Got:
/10
Heritage Space/Heritage Images/Getty Images