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  3. The seven crew members of the space shuttle Discovery will arrive at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday to take one of the biggest

The seven crew members of the space shuttle Discovery will arrive at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday to take one of the biggest

admin2010-05-26  61
问题     The seven crew members of the space shuttle Discovery will arrive at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday to take one of the biggest risks of their lives. They have a 1-in-100 chance of dying during their spaceflight next month. Those, at least, are the official odds that NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration [美国]国家航空和宇宙航行局) has long given.
    That is because two top officials at NASA took the unusual step of dissenting from the space agency’s  decision to go ahead with the launch without fixing the potentially catastrophic problem of foam falling off the external fuel tank—the very problem that doomed Columbia 3 and 1/2 years ago.
    The agency’ s safety director and chief engineer wanted to wait and fix the problem. But NASA Administrator Michael Griffin decided a July 1 launch is worth the added risk for a variety of masons. "It’s a difficult decision, highly technical, highly subtle, very subtle, involves lots of assessment of statistical risks," Griffin said in an interview with The Associated Press. "What’s really instructive is the way the various players in this controversial choice—from the head of NASA to the safety director to the astronauts themselves—are not only using the facts, but their individual unique perspectives in trying  to figure out what’s right or what’s safe.".
What caused Columbia disaster according to this passage?
选项
答案Foam falling off the external fuel tank．
解析 这是一道有关具体信息的题。破折号后“the very problem that doomed Columbia 3 and 1/2 years ago”是做“the potentially catastrophic problem of foam falling off the external fuel tank”的同位语结构意思是正是这个问题注定了哥伦比亚号的灾难。
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