question archive The passage below is an excerpt from Kim Stanley Robinson's article, "A Colony in the Sky," about "terraforming" Mars—that is, turning it into a planet that humans could live on

The passage below is an excerpt from Kim Stanley Robinson's article, "A Colony in the Sky," about "terraforming" Mars—that is, turning it into a planet that humans could live on

Subject:EnglishPrice: Bought3

The passage below is an excerpt from Kim Stanley Robinson's article, "A Colony in the Sky," about "terraforming" Mars—that is, turning it into a planet that humans could live on. Read the two paragraphs and answer the question that follows.

    Terraforming Mars would take 300 years at least. It's not a time scale we often think about, and it does seem unlikely that any society could persist in anything for so long. Luckily, the process will not depend on our consistent backing, but on the people who settle there and pursue it as their own closest interest.

    As for us, here on Earth in the age of the quarterly statement, it is probably a good thing occasionally to contemplate a really long-term project. Humanity's existence on this Earth is a long-term project, after all, and it's important to remember what that means. People will be living here 500 years from now, and they will all be our relatives. These distant children of ours deserve to be given a livable planet to care for in their turn. For their sake we need to work out a sustainable way of life on Earth. Going to Mars will be part of that larger environmental project, and terraforming it will be an education that we will apply at home as we learn it—pausing, from time to time, to look up at our wilderness garden in the sky.

What observation can you make about current human beings from this passage?

A) We have taken on a lot of long-term projects.

B) We have not undertaken projects of this length or magnitude before

C) We will enjoy doing terraforming Mars

D) We don't have enough money to terraform Mars yet

pur-new-sol

Purchase A New Answer

Custom new solution created by our subject matter experts

GET A QUOTE

Related Questions