Self-study
Some critics of space exploration programs claim that they are too costly to be justified. █████████ █████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ████ ██ █ ████████████ ████████████████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████ █ ███████ ██████ ███ ███████ █████████ █████████ ██ ████ ███ ████████ ███████ ████ █████ ██ █████████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████████ █████████ █ ██████ ██ █████████████ █████ ████ ███████ ███████ ███ █ ██████ ███████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████████
Summary
Some people say space exploration programs are too costly to be justified. Most experts say there is a real risk of explosion every flight. Efforts to make the programs cheaper undercut safety. For example, one program had several manufacturing flaws, and critics say these were a result of pressures to cut costs.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Reducing cost for each space flight may lead to another problem of making each flight more dangerous.
18.
The passage conforms most closely ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████████████
a
Attempts to solve ███ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████████████ ██ ███████ ████████
This is strongly supported because the stimulus presents evidence that making a space flight as quickly and cheaply as possible (solving one problem) led to manufacturing flaws (exacerbating another problem).
b
Safety risks are █████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ █████████
This is unsupported because safety risks are happening due to a desire to cut costs, not a desire to enhance scientific progress.
c
Safety is often ██████████ ██ █████ ██ █████ █ ████ ██ ███████ ██ █████████
This is unsupported because we don’t know how often these safety sacrifices happen overall. We only know that it can happen.
d
Bureaucratic mistakes can ████ ██ ███████ █████████ ███ █████████████
This is unsupported because we don’t know that any of the reductions in safety happened due to bureaucratic mistakes. They may have happened without mistake simply due to pressures to cut costs.
e
Space exploration is ███ █████████ ██ ██ ██████████
This is unsupported because we don’t know at what level of danger space exploration should no longer occur. This is not a value statement that was explored in the stimulus.