People, Suits and the Road to Mars: teacher key

Astronauts and Space Travel, grade 8 edition, written for 8th grade. Astronauts are chosen, trained and suited up for work in a place with no air. Read how people got to the Moon and what a trip to Mars would ask of them.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. How strong were the forces on ESA candidates in the centrifuge session?
   • Up to 6G (answer)
   • Up to 60G
   • Up to 1G
2. Which part of the body gets coldest in space?
   • The back
   • The fingers (answer)
   • The head
3. How long did Valentina Tereshkova's Vostok 6 flight last?
   • 15 minutes
   • 108 minutes
   • 70.8 hours (answer)
4. Armstrong and Aldrin spent about 21 hours on the Moon but about two and a half hours outside. Where were they the rest of the time?
   • Inside their spacecraft (answer)
   • In orbit with Collins
   • Back on Earth
5. A radio signal takes roughly 3 to 25 minutes to cross between Earth and Mars. At the very least, how long would one question and its answer take?
   • About 3 minutes
   • About 6 minutes (answer)
   • Under a minute
6. What is atrophy?
   • A kind of spacesuit
   • The loss of bone and muscle in space (answer)
   • A spinning machine

Words

• atrophy: wasting away
• centrifuge: spinning machine
• vacuum: space without air
• buoyant: able to float
• splashed: landed in water