高中英语语法填空:短文题型能力练习 Test 9

At this moment, NASA's Curiosity rover is crawling over the surface of Mars, making one remarkable discovery after another about the Red Planet's possibly life-friendly past. The Hubble Space Telescope, 　61　 (age) but still going strong, is probing ever deeper into the universe. The Cassini mission to Saturn 　62　 (lock) the secrets of the Solar System's second-largest planet and its moons.

The unmanned half of America's space program, in short, is doing 　63　 (amaze) things. But as China's launch of a three-person spacecraft into earth orbit aboard a Long March 2-F rocket just made clear, our manned space program is not just limping along, it's trailing behind even a comparative space race newbie. True, NASA astronauts 　64　 (do) important work aboard the International Space Station (ISS) — 　65　 they haven't been able to use NASA hardware to get to and from the station since 2011, when the Atlantis made the final space-shuttle flight in history.

　66　 , U.S. spacefarers have to hitch rides aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule. In fact, NASA just inked a deal with the Russians to pay $424 million for six seats on Soyuz craft through 2016 — or a tidy $70 million per seat. They may also work out a deal with the private SpaceX corporation, 　67　 successfully delivered supplies to the ISS last year with an 　68　 (man) spacecraft. Space entrepreneur Elon Musk hopes to begin transporting astronauts to the station as 　69　 (early) as next year — and undercut the Russians 　70　 doing so.