Self-study
Support To establish a human colony on Mars would involve assembling tremendous quantities of basic materials at the site of the colony. ███ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ████████████ ████ █████████ ███████ █████ █████ ██ ██ █████ ██ ████ ███ ██ ████████████ ████████ ██ ████████ █████
Summary
The author concludes that it will not be economically feasible to colonize Mars, because establishing a colony would require stockpiling lots of basic materials at the site, and because transporting the materials through space would be so expensive.
Notable Assumptions
One assumption is that there is no economic benefit that would offset the cost of the base materials. We don’t know anything about what economic benefits the colony might generate. Maybe the colony would be able to mine valuable minerals and make up for the cost.
Another assumption is that the source of the costs, the base materials, have to be transported in the first place. What if the materials could be found on Mars? Then it wouldn’t matter that it’s expensive to transport materials through space.
17.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
Only if the ████ ██ ████████████ █████████ ████ █████ ██ ████ █████████ ████ █████ ██████████ ██ ███████████ ██ █████
This isn’t necessary, because it could be that the materials don’t have to be transported from Earth to Mars. If they can be found on another planet besides Earth, then a colony could be established without the transportation costs decreasing.
b
The cost of ████████████ █████ █████████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ███████
Even if the cost of transporting materials was expected to decline by a small amount, it could still be possible for the argument to be valid. If the costs decline by .1%, it might still be economically infeasible. Thus, it is not necessary that costs do not decline at all.
c
Earth is the ████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████ █████ ██████████ ██ █████
(C) would strengthen the argument — but it isn’t necessary. We are given that costs of transporting materials through space are very expensive. Even if the materials were on the moon, we would still have to transport them through space, so the argument could still be valid.
d
No significant benefit █████ ██████ ████ ████████████ █████ ██████████ ██ █████
It could be that there’s a lot of benefit — the argument is about whether it is economically feasible.
We do need to know that there is no financial benefit that would make the colony economically feasible. But this is different from their being no significant benefit at all.
e
Mars is not █ █████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ████████ ███ ████████████ █████ ██████████ ██████
If a colony could get all their basic materials on Mars, then there would be no need to transport them through space. Thus, it wouldn’t matter that it’s expensive to transport materials through space, and the colony might not be economically infeasible.