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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where does Sagan think it is most likely that life will be found on Mars?
(a) On the surface.
(b) In the subsurface rock.
(c) In salt caverns.
(d) In the ice at the poles.

2. What planet is the "evening star"?
(a) Mars.
(b) Venus.
(c) Saturn.
(d) Mercury.

3. What country does Sagan believe is best suited for undertaking a terraforming effort?
(a) The United States.
(b) China.
(c) The European Union.
(d) Japan.

4. What was the major result of the Cretaceous-Tertiary Collision?
(a) The destruction of most plant life on the Earth.
(b) An ice age.
(c) Environmental shifts.
(d) Mass extinction.

5. Sagan suggests that humans could live and thrive around what unusual type of star?
(a) Brown dwarfs.
(b) White dwarfs.
(c) Nova nuclei.
(d) Pulsars.

6. How are chunks of Martian rock studied on Earth?
(a) They are simulated with moon rocks.
(b) They are captured in space.
(c) They are returned by two-way probes.
(d) They fall to the Earth.

7. What is the acronym for the project within SETI that Sagan worked on?
(a) SPACE.
(b) MEGA.
(c) TITAN.
(d) ARGUS.

8. How does Sagan characterize most of the benefits gleaned from the space programs of the 60s and 70s?
(a) They were relatively unimportant.
(b) They were intangible.
(c) They were underestimated.
(d) They were unexpected.

9. What type of Mars mission did President Reagan turn down?
(a) A joint mission with the Soviets.
(b) A one-way colonization mission.
(c) A robotic colony-building mission.
(d) A manned orbital mission.

10. What type of missions does Sagan recommend in order to prepare to deal with Earth-bound asteroids?
(a) Meteor landings.
(b) Asteroid landings.
(c) Spacewalks.
(d) Extra-planetary manned missions.

11. What planet in the solar system obviously suffers from a severe greenhouse gas effect?
(a) Saturn.
(b) Mars.
(c) Venus.
(d) Jupiter.

12. What does Sagan say the rings of Saturn composed of?
(a) Tiny ice worlds.
(b) Frozen methane clouds.
(c) Discs of stone.
(d) Chunks of destroyed planets.

13. What does Sagan believe about weapons of mass destruction?
(a) They must never used in anger.
(b) They are a necessary evil.
(c) They should be tightly controlled.
(d) They must be destroyed.

14. Why do some suggest capturing asteroids in Earth orbit?
(a) To study them.
(b) To use them as space stations.
(c) To mine them for resources.
(d) To use them as weapons.

15. What is an astronomical unit?
(a) The distance that light travels in one minute.
(b) The distance from the sun to the Earth.
(c) The radius of the solar system.
(d) The mean distance between stars.

Short Answer Questions

1. Sagan suggests that ancient people did not think of the moon as which of the following?

2. What happens to the number of asteroids and comets in the solar system as time goes on?

3. What moon was found to have volcanoes?

4. What characteristic of the atmosphere of Venus was initially impossible to explain?

5. At the time this book was written, how many Mars Observers had been flown successfully?

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