2014年托福考试精选练习及答案(第八套)

　　Topic 1

　　Reading Soon there will be something new for the tourist who has been everywhere and seen everything on Earth. Spacecraft being developed by private commercial companies will soon enable private citizens to buy their own tickets to travel into space, thereby creating a space tourism industry. So far, space travel has been undertaken only by governments, but the new, privatized spaceflight industry will bring great benefits to both science and the public.

　　First, private space travel will benefit serious space exploration by making spaceflight cheaper. Privatization of space technology will bring technological costs down very fast because it will allow competition—and competition is one of the strongest motivators to cut costs. Thus, lowering the cost of space travel will benefit not only space tourists but also scientists, who will be able to use private space flights for research purposes.

　　Furthermore, privatization of space travel will accelerate the rate at which important scientific discoveries occur. The aerospace industry already sponsors发起，主办 a lot of groundbreaking scientific research, and adding private spaceflight companies to it will make the industry as a whole grow in size, thereby employing more scientists than it does now. That increased number of working scientists means not only that more discoveries are likely to be made but also that those discoveries are likely to be made more quickly than in the past.

　　Finally, when governments are the sole providers of space travel, the costs are paid for by the whole taxpaying public, but with privatization, the expenses of space travel will be borne by the customers of the industry. The fact that private spaceflight operators will be able to raise funds through ticket sales means that the financial burden on taxpayers will be eased significantly.