Apollo Missions - Names of Command Modules Quiz

Answer: Illinois

Gumdrops are dome shaped candies made of pectin, generally covered in sugar. Gumdrops first came about at the start of the 19th century, possibly as early as 1801. However, these first gumdrops were more likely small, hard sweets instead of the soft sweets we recognise today. However, it wasn't until 1859 that the word "gumdrop" began being used in advertising these types of small sweet. That year, a candy store owner from Decatur, Illinois named George Jullier began advertising his wares in the Illinois State Chronicle. In his adverts, Jullier promoted "Fresh GumDrops, assorted flavor wholesale or retail." By this time, the word had come to mean a gelatin based, rubbery type of sweet akin to a gummy.

Apollo 9 was the first mission in the Apollo programme, and the first manned flight since Gemini 3, to have seen the spacecraft receive individual names. NASA had stopped the practice in 1965, but realised that, with two separate spacecraft operating during lunar missions, each would require its own call-sign. Upon its arrival at the Cape from the factory in California, CSM-104 was covered in blue protective wrapping. That, combined with its conical shape, led to the Command Module being dubbed as "Gumdrop". Although unhappy with the apparent flippancy of the name, NASA gave its approval and the name was made official, with the proviso that names used from Apollo 11 onwards be more formal.

Answer: B-17 Flying Fortress

Charlie Brown, a young man from Weston, West Virginia, had displayed an interest in flying from an early age. Having enlisted in the US Army in 1939, he transferred to the US Army Air Forces in 1942, where he was trained as a bomber pilot. Upon completion of his training, he was assigned as a B-17 pilot to 527th Bomb Squadron at RAF Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire. On 20 December 1943, on his first combat mission, his aircraft participated in bombing the Focke-Wulf factory in Bremen, but sustained damage to two engines, which led to it falling out of formation. Attacks by German fighters saw the aircraft sustain more damage. However, Brown elected to keep flying, as a number of the crew were too injured to bail out. Spotted from the ground, the B-17 was intercepted by Oberleutnant Franz Stigler of JG.27. Having seen the condition of the crew through damage in the bomber's fuselage, Stigler elected to escort the B-17 as far as the English Channel rather than shooting it down. Brown was able to return the aircraft to England, landing at RAF Seething, with all but one of the ten-man crew surviving.

During preparations for the launch of Apollo 10, NASA decided to honour the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip, Charles M. Schulz. Schulz had been a significant advocate of the space programme, while the characters of Charlie Brown and Snoopy had been adopted by the crew of Apollo 10 as unofficial mascots for the flight. This led to the names being adopted for the mission's two spacecraft, with CSM-106 becoming "Charlie Brown".

Answer: South Carolina

The area now occupied by Columbia was originally settled by Europeans during the colonial period, when settlers encountered a number of villages occupied by the Congaree people along the river of the same name, and established a trading post and fort in the area. Located fairly centrally within South Carolina, following independence the area was selected as the site of the new state capital. The legislation founding the new capital was introduced to South Carolina's state legislature by Senator John Lewis Gervais, who stated a hope that "in this town we should find refuge under the wings of COLUMBIA". Although the name Washington for the new town had been suggested, the name Columbia was chosen by the state senate. The legislature met for the first time in Columbia in 1790, while the town was incorporated as a village in 1805, before gaining city status in 1854. Today, Columbia is home to the University of South Carolina, while Fort Jackson, the US Army's largest basic training base, is also located there.

Following Apollo 10, NASA's public affairs division requested that less flippant names for spacecraft be applied, starting with Apollo 11. Although early mission planning had seen the name 'Snowcone' applied to the CSM-107, the Assistant Manager for Public Affairs suggested Columbia for the spacecraft's official name. This was derived from Columbiad, the giant cannon used in Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon", a name that had previously been requested for the Command Module of Apollo 8, but also referred to the female personification of the USA.

Answer: Oakland Athletics

Joe DiMaggio made his debut for the New York Yankees in May 1936, having been picked up from the minor league San Francisco Seals. In his first season, he set a franchise record of 29 home runs, the most by a rookie in a single season, which he followed up with 46 home runs in 1937, leading the scoring charts across the major leagues. By 1939, DiMaggio had helped the Yankees to the World Series every year since his debut, with his speed and range in the outfield leading to his being given the nickname "The Yankee Clipper" by the Yankees' play-by-play announcer, likening his talent to the speed of Pan Am's new Boeing 314 flying boat of the same name. With a three year gap for his military service, DiMaggio remained with the Yankees until his retirement in 1951. Following his retirement, he did a significant amount of television and promotional work, remaining outside baseball. Although offered the manager's role at the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1953, which he turned down, in 1968 he took on a vice-president's position at the Oakland Athletics, for which he also took on a coaching role for a year, allowing him to qualify for Major League Baseball's maximum pension allowance. Although the Athletics finished sixth in the American League, DiMaggio's year as a coach saw the start of improvements to players that would form the nucleus of the team's three successive World Series wins from 1972-74.

Apollo 12 was the first mission to feature a crew consisting of members of the same service, with Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon and Alan Bean all having served in the US Navy. To determine the names of their spacecraft, a competition was run by the employees of the prime contractors, with the winning names to be selected by the crew. For CSM-108, the name Yankee Clipper was selected - this had been suggested by George Glacken, a flight test engineer at North American Aviation, as clippers had "majestically sailed the high seas with pride and prestige for a new America".

Answer: George Chapman

George Chapman was born to a well-to-do family in Hertfordshire some time in 1559. As a younger son, Chapman would be expected to earn a living, as opposed to inheriting from his father. With a good command of both Greek and Latin, he started out initially in the household of Sir Ralph Sadler, who had served both Henry VIII and Edward VI, before going overseas to serve as a soldier. During this period, he secured a loan from a lender named John Wolfall, a decision that would haunt him as he was pursued by both the lender and his son for many years. Despite his issues with money, Chapman developed a reputation as a poet and playwright, producing a number of successful comedies from the late 1590s onwards. As well as his own work, his knowledge of classical languages led to him becoming a noted translator of classical works - starting in 1598, he began publishing a translation of the "Iliad" in installments, with the complete text released in 1611, before turning his attention to the "Odyssey". Published between 1614 and 1615, Chapman's translation, the first of the poem in English, drew significantly from a previous Latin translation by Henri Spondanus, plus annotations of the original by Polizano. It also altered the blank verse structure of Homer's original into iambic pentameter, which Chapman felt better suited the structure of the English language.

During the build-up to the manned landing on the Moon, the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" had proven spectacularly popular. The commander of Apollo 13, Jim Lovell, had this in mind when the time came to name the two spacecraft that would be used on the flight. In addition to its connection to Homer's epic poem, the use of the word odyssey in the title of the film proved inspirational. Lovell ultimately stated that he liked the sound of the word and its definition - "a long voyage with many changes of fortune". As a result, CSM-109 received the name Odyssey prior to its launch. The word and its definition proved prophetic, as it was an explosion in one of Odyssey's oxygen tanks that led to the emergency that caused the landing (and the mission) to be abandoned.

Answer: Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps

The Kitty Hawk Air Society was initially established in the 1971-72 academic year in the Air Force Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps unit based at Southern Wayne High School in North Carolina. Intended as a club to promote excellence in both academics and leadership, the new society was named after Kitty Hawk, the location in 1903 of the Wright Brothers' first experimental aeroplane flight. By 1973, word of the new society had spread to other JROTC units, with enthusiasm for the concept widespread. The establishment of branches, or "chapters", of the society in other JROTC units, with eleven established in the Middle Atlantic Area shared by Southern Wayne by academic year 1976-77. By 1978, the society had been adopted statewide in North Carolina, and moves were put in place to begin the establishment of a national Kitty Hawk Air Society. Today, although requirements vary by individual chapter, the requirements for membership are broadly; membership, either active or reserve, of the local AFJROTC unit; a 3.0 to 3.5 GPA, together with a B average in AFJROTC coursework; demonstrations of good character, with no school suspensions; and a commitment to participation in the activities of the unit.

In the lead-up to Apollo 14, the crew was permitted to choose the names of the spacecraft that would go on the flight with Stuart Roosa, the Command Module Pilot, selecting the name to be applied to the Command Module. He selected Kitty Hawk for CSM-110 after the town in North Carolina where the Wright Brothers had conducted their first flight. The name was also colloquially applied to the Wright Flyer, the aeroplane that the brothers had built to undertake their experiments, which had resided as part of the Smithsonian's collection since 1948.

Answer: Quakers

From the beginning of Colin Dexter's novel series, the protagonist was always simply known as "Morse", never revealing his given name. In the television series based on Dexter's novels, the character, as played by actor John Thaw, would often say when asked his first name, replied: "Morse, everyone just calls me Morse". However, certain clues were dropped throughout the books that hinted at the character's actual given name - in the 1981 novel "The Dead of Jericho", Morse states that he had never quite forgiven his parents for "christening their only offspring as they had", while the same novel also reveals that his initial is 'E'. It was towards the end of the penultimate novel, "Death is Now My Neighbour", published in 1996, that the character finally divulged his name, initially providing the cryptic clue "My whole life's effort has revolved around Eve, nine letters". He reveals that his name is Endeavour, which stems from his mother's Quaker faith, and their tradition of giving their children "virtue names", allied to his father's admiration for Captain James Cook, who commanded HMS Endeavour on his first voyage of discovery between 1768 and 1771.

Apollo 15 was the first of Apollo's "J-missions"; these were extended duration, with much more emphasis on scientific exploration and discovery. To commemorate the increased focus on the science aspects of the mission, the flight's Commander, Dave Scott, explained the reasoning behind the choice of Endeavour as the name for CSM-112 on the grounds that Captain Cook had commanded HMS Endeavour on one of the first voyages undertaken solely for scientific purposes, and Apollo 15 was to be the first lunar landing mission where the primary purpose of the flight, in which Scott and Jim Irwin would spend almost three days on the lunar surface, was scientific in nature.

Answer: Oil

The city of Casper was originally established in a region whose population of settlers had grown during the mid-19th century as a result of the mass migration of people seeking to obtain land. In 1859, Louis Guinard built a bridge and trading post near to the original locations of a number of ferries across the North Platte River, to which the Federal government also posted a garrison, in order to protect the mail and telegraph services that were established. This garrison became Fort Caspar, after the son of the commander, Lt Colonel William Collins. In 1867, Fort Caspar was abandoned, but a town began to be established just east of its location. Settlers began arriving en masse from 1887 onwards, with the new town, which was called Casper, owing to a typo on the official registration, incorporated the following year. In the 1890s, oil was discovered in the area around the town, which led to Casper becoming the centre of the regional industry; its first refinery was built in 1895, and the city has been host to at least one such facility ever since. Following the discovery of oil, deposits of both coal and uranium were subsequently discovered, cementing Casper as a major hub for the extraction of materials used for energy production.

In the lead up to the flight of Apollo 16, it was the crew that again selected the names of the individual spacecraft, with the Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly taking responsibility for the naming of CSM-113. Having had a number of worthy names applied to previous Command Modules since Apollo 11, Mattingly elected instead to evoke Casper the Friendly Ghost, naming his Command Module Casper. The reason, he stated, was that "there are enough serious things in this flight, so I picked a non-serious name."

Answer: Florence

Amerigo Vespucci was born in March 1454 in Florence as the third son of Nastagio Vespucci, a Florentine notary for the Money-Changers Guild, and his wife Lisa di Giovanni Mini. Unlike his elder brothers, Vespucci did not attend university, instead receiving tuition from his uncle Giorgio, a Dominican friar. However, although a man of God, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci was also one of Florence's most celebrated humanist scholars, and Vespucci received a broad classical education in areas such as literature, rhetoric, philosophy and Latin, as well as sciences such as geography and astronomy. Vespucci served on a Florentine diplomatic mission to Paris on the staff of another uncle, Guido, in 1478, before then working for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, part of the Medici family. In 1488, Lorenzo sent Vespucci to Seville to investigate his local business agent. Vespucci subsequently settled in Seville where, in the 1490s, evidence indicates he began making his own voyages of discovery. It was following an account published in 1505 of one such voyage that the lands that Vespucci had explored started to come to the attention of a group of French geographers. Surmising that this was the "new world", two of the scholars, Matthias Ringmann and Martin Waldseemüller, published a book called "Introduction to Cosmography" in 1507, which included in it a world map. Ringmann wrote in his preface " see no reason why anyone could properly disapprove of a name derived from that of Amerigo, the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius. A suitable form would be Amerige, meaning Land of Amerigo, or America, since Europe and Asia have received women's names", which led to the new lands gaining the name "America".

Following the decision that Apollo 17 would be the last lunar landing mission, the crew decided to choose names for their spacecraft that would not only evoke a tradition of U.S. history, but also serve as a tribute to the American people for their support of the entire Apollo programme. As a result, CSM-114 was given the name America, which the Commander, Gene Cernan, explained was to evoke the spirit of 19th-century sailing ships that had carried the name, as well as serving as a thank-you to the people of the USA.

Answer: Charlie Brown

Apollo 10 went to the Moon in May 1969, orbiting 31 times before returning home, with Charlie Brown ultimately landing in the Pacific Ocean on 26 May. Following the flight, the Command Module was turned over to the care of the Smithsonian Institution in April 1970, after which it was shipped to Europe to be taken on tour, visiting countries including the UK, France, the Netherlands and the Soviet Union. In 1976, following its tour, Charlie Brown was loaned by the Smithsonian to the Science Museum in London; since then it has been the only Command Module to reside on display outside the USA.

Of the other eight, Gumdrop is displayed at the San Diego Air and Space Museum; Columbia is at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC; Yankee Clipper is at the Virginia Air & Space Center in Hampton; Odyssey is at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson; Kitty Hawk is displayed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; Endeavour is at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio; Casper is displayed at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama; and America is displayed at Space Center Houston at the Johnson Space Center in Texas.