Page 3 - Book III Unit 4

Reading and Thinking

Learn about the development of space exploration

1 Before you read, look at the title and the photos. Discuss these questions in pairs.

1 What do you think are the main reasons for space exploration?
2 What do you expect to read about in this text?

2 Read the text. Several sentences have been removed from it. Choose the
correct sentence (A–D) to fill each gap.

A Although scientists try to make sure nothing
goes wrong, accidents can still happen.
Summarise the main idea
B Space exploration has come a long way, and
When the main idea is not clearly
we now hope to discover other planets that
stated in a topic sentence, you
are suitable enough to support life. should read the full paragraph
or passage carefully and find
C The future of space exploration remains bright.
the words or ideas that repeat
D After many experiments, they succeeded in themselves. They are likely
evidence of the author's main idea.
making rockets that could escape Earth’s
gravity.

SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER

“Are we alone? What’s out there?” People have always looked up at the stars and
wondered about space. Today, scientists design vehicles to carry astronauts into space
to make important discoveries.

Before the mid-20th century, most people felt travelling into space was only a dream
that could never come true. However, scientists were determined to realise that dream.
On 4 October 1957, the Sputnik 1
satellite was launched by the USSR and successfully orbited around Earth. Afterwards,
the USSR focused on sending people into space, and on 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin
became the first person in the world to enter space. Over eight years later, on 20
July 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong
stepped onto the moon, famously saying, “That’s
one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for
mankind.” Following this, there were many more
important space achievements. For example, on 5
September 1977, America’s NASA space agency
launched Voyager 1 to study deep space, and it
still transmits data to this day. And the International
Space Station (1998) has provided a continuous
human presence in space, with astronauts from
many different countries on board.
Apollo 11 Moon Landing

For example, all the astronauts on the Soyuz 11,

40 UNIT 4 SPACE EXPLORATION