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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 5, "In Single Combat".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. While NASA is introducing and promoting Project Mercury, what is the Air Force trying to promote?
(a) Chuck Yeager's breaking of the sound barrier.
(b) The superior hand-to-hand fighting skills of the pilots.
(c) Their new recruiting practices.
(d) The high number of kills in the Korean conflict.

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

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

4. What does Gus Grissom find to be the strangest experience for him in the beginning of the press conference?
(a) The absolute silence of the conference room as the pilots walk through the curtain for the first time is the strangest thing.
(b) As soon as they appear, reporters start firing questions at them.
(c) The photographers are so eager for pictures of the astronauts and they haven't even been introduced yet.
(d) The flashing light bulbs from all of the cameras causes him to have a seizure.

5. When Gus Grissom's wife gives birth to their first child, where is Gus?
(a) Fighting overseas in Korea.
(b) On a top-secret mission.
(c) In the delivery room.
(d) On base, completing his flight training.

Short Answer Questions

1. When the book begins, where is the Naval Air Station that Pete Conrad is stationed at?

2. What is the nickname given to Pete's flight test class?

3. How many kills does Yeager have by the end of World War II?

4. Who is the only Marine in the group of seven astronauts?

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

(see the answer key)

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