July 2019 - 50th Anniversary of the Apollo Mission

Tap on any hint box to view it.

LOCATION

  1. Note the prevalence of words and phrases such as “final”, “in the end”, “ultimate”, “concluded”, etc.
  2. Once you’ve identified the things referred to by the six clues, take the final letter of each to spell the answer.
  3. The six clue answers are VIRGIN GALACTIC, GALILEO, HUYGENS, GUS GRISSOM, APOLLO, NEW HORIZONS
  4. The answer is COSMOS.

Message from Orbit

  1. Focus first on the two lines under the title. The dots, dashes and x’s represent the title in Morse, with one x between consecutive letters and two x’s between words. There is one digit for each pair of symbols above it.
  2. Each of the nine possible two-symbol combinations is represented by the same digit every time that combination occurs.
  3. The digit 9 is not given at the top, but by process of elimination, you can determine that it represents x—
  4. Substituting the proper pair of symbols for each digit at the bottom, and reading the resulting Morse message yields the answer
  5. YOUR ANSWER IS BEEPING.

Hidden Figures

  1. In a subtraction, when a number in the rightmost column is subtracted from itself, the result must be 0 [zero].
  2. When a number in a non-rightmost column is subtracted from itself, the result can only be 0 [zero] or 9 (it will be 9 if the column to the right “borrowed 1”).
  3. Consider the case of a number A, which when multiplied by four different non-zero digits B, C, D, and E yields products ending in B, C, D, and E respectively. A must equal 1. (6 exhibits a similar pattern, but in a smaller number of cases; e.g. 6*2 = 12, 6*4 = 24, 6*8 = 48.)
  4. BY COMPUTER.
  5. complete the math problem on the bottom to get the final answer
  6. CYRPTO

Unmanned

  1. Take note of the following: The puzzle title is “Unmanned”; the shortest space in the grid is two letters long, but the shortest entry in the word list is five letters long; every entry in the word list contains the substring MAN.
  2. Remove the substring MAN from every entry and then deduce where it fits in the grid.
  3. When you have filled in the grid and extracted the letters from the gray squares, take note of this clause in the flavortext: “that would be manned”.
  4. Insert the string MAN somewhere in the string of extracted letters.
  5. The answer is COMMAND MODULE.

Small Steps

  1. The clue answers are STALK, SLINK, BLANK, BRAND; SEEP, BEER, LEAR.
  2. The 4-letter word ladder is STEP, SEEP, BEEP (or SEER), BEER, BEAR (or LEER), LEAR, LEAP.
  3. The 5-letter word ladder is SMALL, STALL, STALK, STANK, STINK, SLINK, BLINK, BLANK, BLAND, BRAND, GRAND, GRANT, GIANT.
  4. TAKES LADDER.

META - Launch Windows

  1. The answer lengths are easily matched to rocket heights. Write them in top to bottom, as in a crossword puzzle.
  2. The drone (solid black square) will gather telemetry at specific times. For instance the leftmost drone will do so at 1917, 1918, 1919, and 1920.
  3. Given the launch times for each rocket, calculate where each rocket will be when the drone is in its column, and extract the letter at the drone’s position.
  4. SPACE PROGRAM.