Paragraph 1
It is safe to predict that fifty years from now, people will look back and wonder how Man ever managed his affairs on his limited planetary abode without the tools provided by the space programme. That there could ever have been a world without spacecraft will be just as difficult for them to imagine as one without telephones and airlines is for us.
From paragraph 1:
1. Write down the single word which tells us that Man faces constraints in managing his world affairs [1m]
2. What seems to be indispensable in Man’s world? [1m]
Paragraph 2
In 2025 mankind will be faced with many problems that can only be tackled successfully by a global approach. Successful solutions to these problems will require continuous monitoring and surveying of the entire Earth supported by an effective communications system capable of transmitting the large quantities of collected data and pictorial information in real time to a multitude of users in almost a hundred nations. Unmanned Earth survey and communications satellites and orbiting manned observations will form the backbone of this system.
Paragraph 3
The dominating problems of humanity during the next fifty years that will require such aid from space will arise from the collision between Man’s unrestrained and unlimited growth – both in numbers of people and their material expectations – and the grim limitations of resources the Earth can provide and of wastes it can absorb.
Paragraph 4
Some of these problems are already upon us today. The sudden shortage in fuel oil and gasoline made us shockingly aware of our dependence on resources that for too long we have taken for granted. We would be tragically mistaken if we took our present energy crisis as an isolated incident, brought about by profit-hungry oil moghuls, or as a problem of a temporary nature that will soon be resolved. We should reather accept it as a timely and deadly serious storm warning. Not only is our automotive joy ride over (a ride made possible only by a hitherto unlimited supply of cheap energy from oil), but also we will have to learn to utilize more intelligently for planet’s scarce resources in metal ores and its limited ability to produce food for its exploding population.
From paragraph 2 to 4:
3. “In 2025 mankind will be faced with many problems that can only be tackled successfully by a global approach.”
(a) In your own words, explain what “global approach” means in this context. [1m]
(b) List two of the “many problems” mankind will face. [2m]
(c) How should Man see these problems? [1m]
Paragraph 5
During the 90s, a world-wide satellite search was initiated for additional deposits of metal ores, coal, oil, shale and natural gas. Using multispectral scanners and other sophisticated optical devices, the orbital prospectors will collect picture material that, by comparison with known ore for fossil-fuel deposits, can point out promising sites for closer scrutiny by ground crews.
Paragraph 6
By the turn of the century, resource satellites will be collecting, as a matter of routine, precise global data on the local and world-wide yield of such food crops as corn, wheat, rye, barley, rice and soya-beans and of fibre crops like cotton and sisal. As a fleet of these satellites circle the Earth in their low, near-polar orbits, they will enable the data centres on the ground continually to update their crop predictions. For instance, wherever the sensors of a satellite detect a region where previously unspoiled fields had suffered from flood, drought, hailstorm or insect infestation, the “up-date” will enable the data centre to correct its previous estimate.
Paragraph 7
The same satellites will also produce a continuing record of the pattern of world-wide human habitation. Built-up urban areas, characteristically lacking the chlorophyll-signature of vegetation, will stand out like sore thumbs on the satellite-produced Earth pictures. All this quantitative information are required for a badly needed world-wide food-supply management system.
From paragraphs 5 to 7:
4. Using your own words, explain how prospecting for minerals has become more scientific. [2m]
5. What do you think world-wide food-supply management system involve? [2m]
Paragraph 8
The Earth-looking satellites have also provided Man with a deeper understanding of many of the long-term implications of his industrial civilization. For instance, they can settle the old controversy as to whether the Earth as a planet is gradually getting warmer because of the “green-house” effect created by the great amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere through Man’s massive burning of fossil fuels or whether the opposite is true, that it is actually getting colder because those same offensive smokestacks and exhaust pipes increase the average cloudiness and thus reduce the percentage of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface.
Paragraph 9
The concern is well-founded. In the former case even a few degree’s rise in the Earth’s average temperature would suffice to melt, with a few hundred years, the ice caps and glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. As a result, the ocean level would rise about 1.5 metres, inundating all of the world’s coastal cities. In the latter case, our industrial activities might trigger another Ice Age, with equally disastrous consequences.
From paragraphs 8 and 9:
6. “The concern is well-founded.”
(a) What is “the concern” referring to? [1m]
(b) Give a phrase to replace “well-founded”. [1m]
Paragraph 10
Even open oceans can be held under continuous scrutiny. Whenever a tanker captain in 2025 thinks that he can get away with cleaning his bilges or bunker spaces on the high seas under protection of night, the satellites, detecting both the tell-tale oil slick and the ship steaming wasy from the scene, would quickly report the misdeed to the UN pollution-control branch, and the shipping company could expect to be fined for violation of world-wide treaties on environmental protection.
Paragraph 11
Atmospheric pollution could also be a subject of continuous monitoring by the ever-watchful eyes in the sky. The world-wide machinery of environmental protection would be promptly notified whenever pollution levels dangerous to human health were approached.
From paragraphs 10 and 11:
7. In your own words, explain the advantage of having satellites over open oceans. [1m]
8. Give one word or phrase to replace the adjective in the phrase “atmospheric pollution” [1m]
9(a) From both paragraphs, pick the same one word that tells us how frequent watchful eyes are kept on the oceans and the sky. [1m]
9(b) From each paragraph, pick one word that tells u s what these watchful eyes are doing. [2m]
Paragraph 12
In the communications field, satellites will bring about another revolution. The intelsat communications satellites have established a global telephone network interconnecting nearly a hundred nations. Satellites will take over a major share of domestic communication as well. In addition to telephone conversations, they can carry television programmes and facsimile service and provide direct ties between computers in different locations in support of such operations as banking or ticket reservations.
Paragraph 13
It is also safe to predict that some degree of weather control will be achieved. Think of the implications of having rainfall occur only at night or, more important in terms of meeting the world’s need for food, of being able to bring rainfall at will to areas now parched and wrecked by drought.
Paragraph 14
Many of the space operations in 2025 will become familiar events throught the advent of the reusable space shuttle, which saw its first use in 1979. The shuttle has not only drastically reduced the cost of space transportation but also opened up space for the non-astronaut. Surely, there will still be astronauts on the flight deck of the advanced space shuttle of 2025, but their role can be compared with that of the flight crew in an airliner. The passengers will be astronomers, meteorologists, environmentalists, climatologists, geologists, oil prospectors, and other Earth-resources experts. For them space flight will become the old airline routine of “coffee, tea or milk”.
Paragraph 15
By 2025, Man will also have sat foot on the planet Mars. Will he find life? Here again my crystal ball gets clouded. (There would be no fun in science and exploration if everything could be predicted. We can only speculate that we might find at least some lower forms of life there.)
From paragraphs 12 to 15:
10. In the sentence, “In the communications field, satellites will bring about another revolution”, explain why the word “revolution” is used here. [1m]
11. In your own words, explain two differences between the astronauts and non-astronauts, making clear what their roles are. [2m]
12. For each of the following words, give one word or short phrase (of not more than seven words) which has the same meaning that the word has in the passage. [5m]
(a) abode
(b) sophisticated
(c) smokestacks
(d) suffice
(e) drastically
13. Using your own words as far as possible, summarise the ways in which satellites help or will help Man solve the dominating problems of humanity and aid in communications.
USE THE MATERIAL FROM PARAGRAPHS 5 TO 12.
Your summary, which must be in continuous writing (not note form), must not be longer than 150 words (not counting the words given to help you begin).
Begin your summary as follows: As early as the 90s, satellites were used to… [25m]
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