1 . Space tourism is the term used to describe space travel for recreational or leisure purposes. What was once only a dream, as described in A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke, is now becoming a reality.
Futurologists attempt to make predictions of what life will be like in the future. After the first man landed on the moon, they thought that hotels would be built on the moon by the year 2000. They also considered the possibility that, in the 21st century, families might go for a holiday on the moon. Neither of these predictions have come true yet-but the rapid development of technology may mean these predictions are possible in the years to come.
Space Adventures is currently the only company to have succeeded in sending paying passengers into space. It worked with the Federal Space Agency of Russia and Rocket and Space Corporation Energia to provide flights for the world’s first private space explorers. Each paid over $20 million for their 10-day trip to the International Space Station.
Following successful explorations into space, other companies are now considering the possibility of enabling tourists to visit space. To make it affordable, suborbital space travel is being considered by some companies, like Virgin Galactic. Passengers would be transported to a height of between 100 and 160 km above earth, experience 3 — 6 minutes of weightlessness and a view of the stars before back to earth. This is expected to cost around $200, 000 per person.
Whilst it could be an enriching experience, there are some disadvantages. Many critics say that a huge growth in the spaceflight industry could drastically speed up the process of global warming. The ozone layer would be damaged further and the polar regions would suffer. In addition, space travel is only really affordable for the super-rich, though Virgin Galactic claims to be ‘opening space to the rest of us’.
1. What do you know about space tourism?| A．It is nothing but a dream. | B．It’s only in some fairy tales. |
| C．It’s a sightseeing tour in space. | D．It’s a scientific expedition. |
| A．The future life on the moon. | B．Landing on the moon in 1969. |
| C．Predictions about trips to the moon. | D．The history of the moon exploration. |
| A．It’s cheaper. | B．It’s safer. | C．It’s greener. | D．It’s convenient. |
| A．Its safety. | B．Environmental effect. |
| C．Social equality. | D．Its expense. |
2 . On paper, hydrogen（H2）looks like a dream fuel. Coal, oil, and natural gas produce carbon dioxide, which warms the earth when burned, Hydrogen produces pure water. Hydrogen packs more energy into less space than a battery（but certainly less than petrol）. Also, empty tanks（燃料箱）can be refilled with hydrogen much faster than refilling empty batteries with electricity.
While in practice, things are trickier. Storing a meaningful amount of hydrogen gas requires pressing it several hundred-fold. Changing it into the liquid form is another option, but it should be cooled to-253C. Both processes require a heavy and strong tank. While a 700 bar tank is acceptable for a city bus or a truck, adapting it for use in small vehicles is very difficult because the pressure during refilling would be too great.
The solution? Powerpaste.
A German team of researchers, led by Marcus Vogt, have come up with an interesting "powerpaste", which can store hydrogen energy at atmospheric pressure, ready for release when needed. It is so named because it comes in tubes and looks like toothpaste（牙膏）, not in its traditional form of gas.
The main ingredient（原料）of the paste is magnesium hydride, a substance that reacts with water to form hydrogen. The escaped hydrogen can then be directed into a fuel cell, where it reacts with oxygen from the air to produce electric power.
Refueling is very simple, as instead of going to a filling station, drivers and riders can simply replace an empty tube with a new one and refill the water tank.
Given that powerpaste only begins to break down at temperatures of around 250℃ it remains safe even when a vehicle stands in the baking sun for hours.
However, we will have to be patient. Just because researchers have succeeded in developing a new fueling way does not mean that we can expect to see such vehicles on the road anytime soon. It will indeed be several years before this concept is turned into reality.
1. As a fuel, what is the advantage of hydrogen over oil?| A．Refilling empty tanks will be more convenient. |
| B．It is less likely to worsen global warming |
| C．More energy can be packed in the same space. |
| D．It will produce pure water for people to drink. |
| A．The practical difficulties to use hydrogen as fuel in small vehicles. |
| B．The detailed processes of adapting a strong tank in small vehicles. |
| C．The differences in fueling between large vehicles and small ones. |
| D．The tricks of building strong tanks in small vehicles. |
| A．inexpensive | B．powerful | C．convenient | D．environment-friendly |
| A．Powerpaste-driven vehicles sometimes move very slowly on the road. |
| B．Practical use of powerpaste-driven vehicles will not come very soon. |
| C．Powerpaste-driven vehicles can only work after being in the sun for hours |
| D．It will be years before the researchers work out the concept of powerpaste. |
3 . The idea of having car, a plane, drone(无人驾驶飞机) parked outside your home may not be as unlikely as it seems.
We are going to have personal air vehicles that are both cars and planes. At least that's Missy Cumming's vision of the future. It's basically the intersection of a drone with a robotic car, so your plane is also your car, but the quick development of technology is that you are actually driving neither.
Drones have a negative image in the media, says Cummings, because they are basically seen as spy cameras. But most people don't realize that when they are on a plane they are effectively travelling on a drone. The fly-by-wire technology that exists on all Airbuses and many crafts of Boeing is the exactly same technology that exists on drones.
The reason why drones are the answer to the future is that we are terrible drivers. Humans have a half-second lag(时滞) in almost any quick response that they need to have. Even a half- second delay can mean the difference between life and death, and computers and automated(自动化的) systems don't have that.
So, our transportation network of the future, both on the ground and in the air，will actually be safer when we turn it over to computers.
There really aren't any technological difficulties to this idea. The biggest difficulties we have in terms of giving up the car are psychological and cultural, but no new technology needs to be developed to have your own personal flying car. What we have to do is to improve production and reduce manufacturing costs.
People should be excited about this: it promises much in terms of safer travel, and people in parts of the world where the road and air networks are poor will be able to get the goods and services.
1. What is the meaning of the underlined word”intersection” in paragraph 2?| A．交叉 | B．部分 | C．交流 | D．结构 |
| A．The truth. | B．The difference. |
| C．The quick response. | D．A half-second delay. |
| A．Their being expensive. | B．Lacking advanced technology. |
| C．People's not accepting the idea. | D．People's failing to improve production. |
| A．Future Vehicles | B．Future Flying Cars |
| C．An Answer to the Future | D．Safer Travel |
4 . What if we had the power to control time, instead of moving from the past to the present to the future? What if we could jump, loop and travel through time in a machine? What if we could go wherever and whenever we pleased?
This ability would allow us to witness historic wonders, change decisions and see people from the past. We could right wrongs and stop wars from starting.
The mysterious puzzle of time has kept people debating its nature for hundreds of years. Science fiction writers have turned it into imaginative stories. Some scientists have even attempted to explain it using math. This math tries to make the dream of time travel come true.
The scientist Albert Einstein said that time and space are one thing. He called it “spacetime.” Einstein said that there are three dimensions in space: height, width and depth. A scientist named Hermann Minkowski added time as a fourth dimension.
Einstein introduced two ideas that have led to theories about the possibility of time travel. The first is relativity. The idea of relativity is that the force of gravity causes space to bend, which causes time to twist. The second idea focuses on special relativity. The idea is that a traveler moving super-fast through flat spacetime will enter the future. Einstein considered time “relative” because it is measured based on where we are on Earth or in space.
Stephen Hawking is a famous scientist. He believes that a time machine will never be built. If it were possible, he thinks we would already know. If a time machine could be built, how come no one from the future has invaded us?
The first science fiction story with this theme is The Clock That Went Backward by Edward P. Mitchell, which was published in 1881. Since then, thousands of books, films and television shows have explored the idea of time travel, in which some tools such as phones, watches, photographs and old books take travelers backward and forward.
Will time travel ever happen? Who knows? Most important is to keep your eyes open and have a sense of wonder.
1. What is the author’s purpose of writing the first paragraph?| A．To show time and space are connected. |
| B．To show people’s interest in time travel. |
| C．To draw readers’ attention to time travel. |
| D．To make people believe time travel is possible. |
| A．Time travel is possible in the future. |
| B．People can’t move faster than light. |
| C．Time travel is against scientific rules. |
| D．Spacetime is not a real thing in theory. |
| A．The first science fiction story. |
| B．Some tools used in time travel. |
| C．Edward P. Mitchell, the pioneer. |
| D．Different works about time travel. |
| A．cautious. | B．pessimistic |
| C．sceptical | D．optimistic. |
5 . Want to get your package delivered via robots? Now there’s an app for that. If you live in Washington D.C., or Redwood, you may have glimpsed a small, boxy robot rolling along a local sidewalk, minding its own business, but attracting the attention of many curious onlookers.
The autonomous machines were part of a pilot program last year by Starship Technologies focusing on delivering meals from local restaurants in dozens of cities around the world. This week, the company unveiled plans to broaden its delivery service beyond food to include package, a move that led it to declare itself “the world’s first robot package delivery service”. The next time you order food, this cute robot might roll up to deliver it. The package delivery service is not available to everyone yet.
The wheeled robots have a top speed of 4mph and can detect obstacles from 30 feet away. “The robot can operate through anything,” Nick Handrick, head of operations for Starship’s D.C. office, sad, “If you had something in the way-a stick –it’s able to climb sticks.”
To sign up for the service, which costs a little more than $10 per month, customers need to download the company’s app. Customers then create a “Starship Delivery Address”, a unique address inside a Starship facility, where they can have package sent from places such as Amazon.com. Once a package is delivered to the Starship address, customers receive a text notification that allows them to schedule a home delivery via robot. The robots are opened by customers via a mobile phone code.
Barriers exist for robotic ground delivery, with many states requiring that humans be in control of delivery robots. Those regulations haven’t stopped Starship Technologies from accumulating experience on streets around the globe ahead of the company’s latest launch. The company says its robots have covered more than 125,000 miles in more than 100 cities in 20 countries.
1. What can we know about the robotic delivery?| A．It is part of a trial project by Starship Technologies. |
| B．The robotic delivery is available to everyone at present. |
| C．You can use the service free of charge via smart phones. |
| D．The robots are opened by customers with a text notification. |
| A．Revised. | B．Released. | C．Restored. | D．Reset. |
| A．The good news of the service. |
| B．How the robotic delivery works. |
| C．The disadvantages of the robotic delivery. |
| D．Robotic delivery develops despite challenges. |
| A．New Robot Was Invented | B．Wheelless Robots Are on the Way |
| C．How Robots Deliver Packages | D．Packages Will Be Delivered by Robots |
6 . Mars(火星) appears to be flowing with small streams of salty water, at least in the summer, scientists reported Monday. “It suggests that it would be possible for there to be life today on Mars,” NASA’s science mission chief, John Grunsfeld, said at a news conference on September 28, 2015.
The streams are about 12 to 15 feet wide and 300 feet or more long, scientists said. “What we’re dealing with is wet soil, thin layers of wet soil, not standing water,” said Aifred McEwen of the University of Arizona at Tueson, the principal scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s high-resolution imaging experiment.
Because liquid water is essential to life, the findings could have major implications for the possibility of Martian life. The researchers said further exploration is needed to determine whether microscopic life exists on the planet.
The presence of liquid water could also make life easier for astronauts visiting or living on Mars. Water could be used for drinking and for creating oxygen and rocket fuel. NASA’s goal is to send humans there in the 2030s.
The evidence of flowing water consists largely of dark, narrow streaks(条痕) on the surface that tend to appear and grow during the warmest Martian months and fade the rest of the year.
Mars is extremely cold even in summer, and the streaks are in places where the temperature is as low as minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit. But salt can lower the freezing point of water and melt ice.
The source of the water is a mystery. Scientists noted it could be melting ice. It could be an underground aquifer, which is rock or sand that can hold water. It is possibly water vapor from the thin Martian atmosphere. Or it may be a combination Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars exploration program, said the only definitive way for now to determine whether there’s life on Mars is to collect rocks and soil for analysis on Earth—something a U. S. lander set for lift-off in 2020 will do.
1. According to John Grunsfeld, there seems to be on Mars.| A．salty water | B．standing water |
| C．rocket fuel | D．human beings |
| A．state | B．source |
| C．temperature | D．taste |
| A．The distance from the sun | B．The favorable climate |
| C．The gravity of the earth | D．The salt in it |
| A．Streams of Water Spotted on Mars |
| B．Astronauts will Land on Mars |
| C．NASA’s Mars Exploration Program |
| D．A Breakthrough in the Exploration of Mars |
7 . In the far future, robots live on Earth as humans but the population of humans is smaller than a thousand. This is a story of a repair robot R-62.
One day, a car came to the repair factory and a human stepped out of the car.
“Wow, a human! I have never seen a real one,” said R-62.
“Humans are quite clever. They’re able to do any action they want to. They’re even able to harm other human beings or organize wars, which they have been doing a lot in the history. Also they don’t even have to follow orders if they don’t want to,” said another robot T-59 quietly to R-62.
“How terrible it is! And almost all robots seem afraid of him and don’t look at him directly,” said R-62.
The human then sat down and asked if there had been any problems in the last 10 years and he only got a quick answer, “No, sir.”
Then suddenly, R-62 said loudly, “I have one question for you.”
The human said, “Yes”, a bit unhappy for not getting “sir”.
“Why do human create so many robots?” asked R-62.
Silence followed the question and he then said, “I don’t need to answer questions from robots!” He then went into his car and drove away quickly.
“I really don’t understand why humans replaced (取代)themselves with robots,” asked R-62.
“Because they thought that robots were more advanced(先进的) than humans. They created us to support themselves,” answered T-59.
“But there are so few humans on Earth. What they should do is take away the robots or at least make them stop doing the work which humans are supposed to do,” said R-62.
“I agree. But we can do nothing about it. And now we have to finish repairing this car,” said T-59.
“All right, let’s continue.”
1. In T-59’s opinion, humans are ________.| A．stupid | B．polite |
| C．dangerous | D．smart |
| A．dared not look at the human directly | B．decided to give up its job |
| C．was not friendly to the human | D．hope to live on Earth |
| A．R-62 doesn’t know what human beings look like. |
| B．T-59 knows a lot about human beings. |
| C．T-59 doesn’t want to support human beings. |
| D．R-62 and T-59 are brothers and do different jobs. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Excited. |
| C．Frightened. | D．Supportive. |
