Summarize the points made in the lecture and explain how they cast doubt on points made in the reading passage.
Space Tourism
Soon there will be something new for the tourist who has been everywhere and seen everything on Earth. Spacecraft being developed by private commercial companies will soon enable private citizens to buy their own tickets to travel into space, thereby creating a space tourism industry. so far, space travel has been undertaken only by governments, but the new, privatized spaceflight industry will bring great benefits to both science and the public.
First, private space travel will benefit serious space exploration by making spaceflight cheaper. Privatization of space technology will bring technological costs down very fast because it will allow competition--and competition is one of the strongest motivators to cut costs. Thus, lowering the cost of space travel will benefit not only space tourists but also scientists, who will be able to use private space flights for research purposes.
Furthermore, privatization of space travel will accelerate the rate at which important scientific discoveries occur. the aerospace industry already sponsors a lot of groundbreaking scientific research, and adding private spaceflight companies to it will make the industry as a whole grow in size, thereby employing more scientists than it does now. that increased number of working scientists means not only that more discoveries are likely to be made but also that those discoveries are likely to be made more quickly than in the past.
Finally, when governments are the sole providers of space travel, the costs are paid for by the whole taxpaying public, but with privatization, the expenses of space travel will be borne by the customers of the industry. The fact that private spaceflight operators will be able to raise funds through ticket sales means that the financial burden on taxpayers will be eased significantly.
The reading states that privatizing space tourism will benefit both science and public and provides three reasons of support. The professor disagrees with the article and refutes each of author's reasons.
First, the reading claims that space flights will become a lot cheaper if they get privatized. The professor refutes the statement by explaining that private companies will need to have elaborate space traffic control in order to avoid collisions. He also mentions that safety is another issue. He says that spacecrafts require to be tested and re-tested which cost a lot of money. This is why professor does not believe the price would go down.
Second, the article avers that privatizing space traveling will accelerate the rate of discoveries. The lecturer opposes this statement by saying that this will cause delay or prevention of discoveries. He explains that private companies would hire the best and brightest scientists and engineers with high salaries for the space tourism and since space tourism does not have scientific value, this would cause problems for serious spacecrafts because they would not have as many expert staff.
Third, the reading states that privatizing space tourism would decrease financial burden for taxpayers. The professor refutes the reason by explaining that private space tourism is impossible without taxpayers' money. He says that spaceship and space stations need billions of dollars to be built and function and private companies will not be able to raise enough funds for that. He explains this will force taxpayers to pay even more tax to subsidize vacation of people who travel to space.
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 26 in 30
Category: Very Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 14 12
No. of Words: 261 250
No. of Characters: 1358 1200
No. of Different Words: 138 150
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.019 4.2
Average Word Length: 5.203 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.49 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 99 80
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 84 60
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 50 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 37 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.643 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.06 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.286 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.348 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.547 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.137 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 4