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Passage Two
A sweeping review of NASA’s human spaceflight program has concluded that the agency has an unsustainable and unsafe strategy that will prevent the United States from achieving a human landing on Mars in the foreseeable future. The 286-page National Research Council (NRC) report says that to continue on the present course under budgets that don’t keep pace with inflation “is to invite failure, disillusionment, and the loss of the longstanding international perception that human spaceflight is something the United States does best. ”
A major argument against returning to the moon was that it didn’t pencil out一that there wasn’t nearly enough money dedicated to the program. If the goal is a human landing on Mars, the current strategy won’t work. “Absent a very fundamental change in the nation’s way of doing business, it is not realistic to believe that we can achieve the consensus goal of reaching Mars, ” Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor and co-chair of the committee, said Wednesday morning in an interview.
A 2009 committee appointed by Obama urged NASA to keep its options open while investing in spaceflight technology and letting the commercial sector handle routine trips to low Earth orbit. But the NRC reviewers argue that NASA and its international partners should focus on the “horizon goal” of Mars and do whatever it takes to get there, step by step, avoiding changes in strategic direction.
NASA officials, aware that critics see the agency as adrift, say they have already been moving in the direction advocated by the NRC. Their strategy targets Mars, just as the NRC report now demands, they say. “ All this work will eventually enable astronaut missions to Mars，” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent NASA white paper.
“NASA’s been doing some work, and has been doing some thinking over the last six months, that is in alignment with what the NRC says the top-level goals are，” said Greg Williams, a NASA deputy associate administrator. But Williams was cool to the suggestion of a return to the moon, saying the airless moon offers little help in developing the kind of descent and landing techniques needed on Mars, which has a thin, troublesome atmosphere.
The NRC committee probed the philosophical question of why we send people into space to begin with. The committee concluded that the purely practical, economic benefits of human spaceflight do not justify the costs but that the aspirational nature of the endeavor may make it worth the effort.
42. The review of NASA’s human spaceflight program is described as .
A. timely B. extensive C. critical D. notable
43. The National Research Council report implies that .
A. the U. S. plays a leading role in spaceflight
B. international cooperation requires more budget
C. the program’s chances of success are slim
D. the public need to give more support to the program
44. According to Mitch Daniels, reaching Mars .
A. lacks funding from the business world
B. is a project that has made great achievements
C. is a generally accepted objective
D. will change the country in various ways
45. A 2009 committee appointed by Obama argued that NASA should .
A. become more commercialized
B. pay more attention to low-Earth-orbit projects
C. become more realistic with its strategies
D. make more efforts in different space programs
46. NASA is criticized for .
A. lacking consistent goals B. being overambitious
C. demanding too much fund D. having low-quality staff
47. The NRC committee claimed that spaceflight •
A. deserves devotion B. brings economic benefits
C. would have an uncertain future D. should use the techniques of moon-landing