2014年托福考试精选练习及答案(第八套)_第2页

　　Listening

　　Well, it looks as though we’ll soon see private spaceships carrying tourists into space. But will it really provide great benefits for serious science and for the public? I don’t think so.

　　First, privatized space travel, which is extraordinarily expensive, is likely to stay that way. For one thing, commercial space travel will require an elaborate space traffic-control system to prevent collisions—and the development and operation of such a system won’t come cheap either. Another thing that’ll keep costs high is tested and retested—and that also tends to be a very expensive process. Both of those costs will be reflected in the prices of the spaceflight tickets, so no one should expect the cost of space flights to go down fast.

　　Second, if commercial spaceflight has any effect at all on the rate of scientific discovery and innovation, it will be to delay or even prevent such discovery and innovation. If the best and the brightest engineers get lured away from government space programs by the high salaries offered by private, for-profit companies, they might end up working on commercial stuff that doesn't have much scientific value. And as a result, serious space research might actually suffer.

　　And finally, will the taxpaying public get off the hook financially? No chance! The fact is that so-called private space tourism isn’t possible without huge public tax subsidies. It will take billions and billions of dollars to build space stations, space airports, and so on, and private investors simply cannot raise such huge amounts. So the burden on taxpayers won’t be significantly eased with the development of the private spaceflight industry. In fact, all taxpayers’ll be paying more to subsidize the vacations of the space tourists.