II. Fill in the blanks in the sentences below with one of these words or phrases taken from the reading.

I. Answer these multiple-choice questions to see how well you understood the reading.

Exercises

1. Which statement best describes the order in which the first three ISS components were launched?

(A) Zvezda-Zahra-Unity

(B) Unity-Zahra-Zvezda

(C) Zahra-Unity-Zvezda

(D) Zakra-Zvezda-Unity

2. How many spacewalks will be needed to assemble the ISS?

(A) 7

(B) 44

(C) 110

(D) 160

3. Why did Skylab have to be abandoned?

(A) Because of a fire aboard the space station

(B) Because there was no way to transport crews to the space station

(C) Because the entrance to the space station could not be opened

(D) Because it was going to come out of orbit in a few weeks

4. If the original schedule is followed, how long will the ISS probably remain useful?

(A) Until 2006

(B) Until 2010

(C) Until 2016

(D) Until 2100

5. Who drew the space station on the cover of the March 1952 edition of Colliers Magazine?

(A) Charles Bonestell

(B) Arthur C. Clarke

(C) Werner von Braun

(D) Stanley Kubrick

6. Which of these terms is NOT a name for the most ambitious type of Lagrange station?

(A) Island 3

(B) Sunflower design

(C) L-5

(D) O'Neill cylinder

7. Which of the following would probably NOT be true about Island 3 Lagrange stations?

(A) Tourists from earth might visit them.

(B) They would depend on Earth for all their food.

(C) People could «fly» through their centers where there was no gravity.

(D) Because of their size, they might actually create their own weather.

8. What point about immense space stations is made in the last paragraph?

(A) They will almost certainly be built one day.

(B) They continue to hold people's interest.

(C) They are not as useful as smaller stations.

(D) They are still being planned.

undertaken

panic

vanished

eased

modest

upkeep

postponed

mined

zoned

landscaped

anticipated

vital

projected

clusters

eventually

axis

illustrated

urgent

gracefully

a far cry

unique

ambitious

grip

setbacks

1. The baseball game had to be ____________________ for an hour because of a thunderstorm.

2. Some stars occur alone, but others occur in ____________________ containing hundreds of thousands of stars.

3. Right now, the company's new headquarters seems to be sitting in the middle of a muddy field. However, the grounds will look much better once they have been ____________________.

4. This is the most difficult task Joan has ever ____________________. Right now, she wishes she had never agreed to do it.

5. The first proposal made by the commission was complicated and expensive, but the second was more ____________________.

6. The Treehouse Restaurant has a ____________________ setting. The tables are actually located in platforms in huge cypress trees. It's unlike any other restaurant I've seen.

7. The Evergreen Corporation was hoping to show a profit for the first time this year, but because of some financial ____________________, the company will again show a loss.

8. Some cities are divided into ____________________: one for housing, one for business, one for industry, and so on.

9. Mr. Dufour inherited a mansion from his uncle, but he had to sell it because he couldn’t afford the ____________________ on it.

10. The small, flimsy airplanes of the early 1900s are ____________________ from the powerful jumbo jets of today.

11. Copper is ____________________ in Chile.

12. The ballet dancer moved so ____________________ that she seemed to defy gravity.

III. These statements come from the reading «Oases in Space». Read each statement and then answer the questions that follow. Check your answers before you begin the reading.

The first component of the ISS, Zahra («sunrise» in Russian), was launched into orbit in 1998. A few weeks later, the crew of a U.S. space shuttle brought the second piece, Unity, and connected the two.

1. There is another word in this statement that has the same meaning as component. Find that word.

With an anticipated lifetime of 10 years after completion, the ISS is not only the most complicated scientific project ever undertaken but also, at a projected cost of $35 billion to $50 billion, one of the most expensive.

2. Find a synonym for projected.

At the time, some people feared that the debris might land in an inhabited area, and a few people even built "Skylab shelters." However, there was no reason to panic; Skylab burned up harmlessly over Australia.

3. If something happens harmlessly, it happens…

(A) in a spectacular way.

(B) without causing any damage.

(C) very rapidly.

After World War II, many German rocket scientists who had worked on weapons programs immigrated to the United States and the Soviet Union.

4. If a person immigrated to another country, he or she...

(A) visited there briefly.

(B) moved there permanently.

(C) was forced to go there.

Werner von Braun, the most famous of these scientists, played a vital role in the early days of the U.S. space program. It was von Braun who decided that a large space station was essential to the exploration of space, a first step that would provide a stopping place on the way to the moon and the planets.

5. Find and write down another word that means vital.

Arthur C. Clarke's collection of stories Islands in the Sky (1952) and Murray Leister`s novel Platform in space (1953) were set on fictional space stations of this kind.

6. If something is fictional, it…

(A) doesn't really exist.

(B) is described in detail.

(C) is strange and wonderful.

These huge stations were to be built to last for hundreds of years. According to the studies, the materials needed to build the station could be mined from the moon. Gigantic magnetic catapults on the moon could then hurl the millions of components out to the Lagrange points.

7. Find and write down a synonym for gigantic.

To pay for the station's construction and upkeep, solar panels could collect energy from the sun and, for a price, send it by tight-beam microwaves back to Earth.

8. Another word for upkeep is…

(A) launching.

(B) power.

(C) maintenance.

The stations would contain residential, industrial, and agricultural zones.

9. This statement tells us that the stations would have areas used for...

(A) housing, manufacturing, and farming.

(B) communication, navigation, and control.

(C) recreation, education, and energy production.

A scientist named Gerald O'Neill wrote a popular book called High Frontier in 1975 to promote Lagrange stations, and an international group, the L-5 Society, named after one of the Lagrange points, was formed to encourage governments to build Lagrange stations.

10. Find a synonym for promote.

Within a decade, government enthusiasm for the Lagrange stations vanished. NASA no longer had enough money to undertake projects this ambitious. As the energy crisis of the 1970s eased, the prime reason for building such stations—to provide a cheap, dependable supply of energy from space—no longer seemed so urgent. Space engineers began to focus their attention on more modest projects, such as the ISS.

11. A synonym for urgent is…

(A) critical.

(B) simple.

(C) possible.

12. Find and an antonym for modest.

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