ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

SECTION II
Total time—2 hours and 15 minutes
3 Questions

Question 1

Suggested reading and writing time—55 minutes

It is suggested that you spend 15 minutes reading the question, analyzing and evaluating the sources,
and 40 minutes writing your response.
Note: You may begin writing your response before the reading period is over.

(This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)

Space exploration has historically been led by government programs with public funding, but in 2004 the United
States legalized privatized space travel. Since then private industries have been investigating ways to make exploring
space both affordable and profitable. Critics of privatized space exploration believe that the costs of space travel are
too prohibitive to be worthwhile for the general public.

Carefully read the following six sources, including the introductory information for each source.

Write an essay that synthesizes material from at least three of the sources and develops your position on the extent to
which privatizing space exploration is beneficial.
Source A (McCarthy)
Source B (Schwartz)
Source C (Pappalardo)
Source D (table)
Source E (cartoon)
Source F (Al-Rodhan)
In your response you should do the following:
• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible position.
• Select and use evidence from at least three of the provided sources to support your line of
reasoning. Indicate clearly the sources used through direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary.
Sources may be cited as Source A, Source B, etc., or by using the description in parentheses.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

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AP English Language and Composition Practice Exam 35

 Source A
McCarthy, Kevin. “Commercial Space: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Space, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology.” 20 Nov. 2013,
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113hhrg86894/pdf/CHRG-113hhrg86894.pdf.

The following is excerpted from the testimony of a United States representative during a congressional hearing.

America is built on a strong heritage of exploration, discovery, and innovation. From President Thomas
Jefferson’s commissioning of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to exploring the American West, to the
Transcontinental Railway linking east and west together, to the public-private partnership that helped the airline
industry grow to become a safe mode of travel all over the world, to the internet, which has generated as much
economic growth in 15 years as the Industrial Revolution did in 50.

Space, like the internet before the dot-com boom of the 1990s, was originally a government-run enterprise.
Many believe that the commercial spaceflight is poised to have its own dot-com moment in the near future.
NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo program alone has already created thousands of high-quality jobs here in
America, including many at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, which I represent. My district is also
home to Mojave Air and Space Port where many commercial spaceflight companies have located to research,
develop, and test their hardware that will soon take Americans back to space.

This is why I support the commercial spaceflight industry: the creation of thousands of good paying jobs on
U.S. soil and the continuation of America’s legacy in space exploration and innovative technologies. Think
about this: Over the last 50 years, about 500 humans have been to space. With the commercial space market,
the number could double over the next ten years with the government only serving as a customer. The next
U.S. astronauts to fly to space on American rockets will do so because of this new model.

The use of innovative public-private partnerships offers the government new ways of solving problems. A
study shows these partnerships benefit the taxpayer, by providing space services at nearly 1/ 10 the cost of
traditional contracting methods, getting results for less money, getting innovation, growth, and risk-sharing in
the private sector. As NASA leads continued exploration missions and related technology development,
entrepreneurs will follow, spending their own money and creating new industries.

However, it is up to us as legislators to ensure our current regulatory environment is appropriate for the needs
of the 21st Century and to make sure safety is paramount in the commercial spaceflight industry’s endeavors.
This is why I introduced H.R. 3038 to ensure that the U.S. commercial spaceflight industry has a clear path
ahead as it continues to innovate and generate high-quality American manufacturing jobs. A robust commercial
space industry will also help attract students to the STEM fields of education by inspiring the next generation
to literally reach for the stars.

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36 AP English Language and Composition Practice Exam

 Source B
Schwartz, John. “Thrillionaires: The New Space Capitalists.” The New York Times, 14 June 2005,
www.nytimes.com/ 2005/ 06/ 14/science/space/thrillionaires-the-new-space-capitalists.html.

The following is excerpted from a newspaper article about space entrepreneurship.

[Paul G.] Allen, who became a co-founder of Microsoft, is responsible for SpaceShipOne, the pint-size manned
rocket that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition last year as the first privately financed craft to fly to
the cusp of space—nearly 70 miles up.

Mr. Allen is not the designer; that is Burt Rutan, the legendary aeronautical engineer with the sideburns that
look like sweeping air scoops. He is not one of the test pilots who made the competition-winning flights; they
are Michael Melvill and Brian Binnie. Mr. Allen is, instead, the one who gets little glory but without whom
nothing is possible—he is the guy who signs the checks. And he did what the rich do: he hired good people.

The SpaceShipOne flight made him the best-known member of a growing club of high-tech thrillionaires,
including the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who find themselves with money enough to fulfill their childhood
fascination with space. Rick N. Tumlinson, co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, a group that
promotes public access to space, said the effort had become a geeky status symbol. “It’s not good enough to
have a Gulfstream V,” he said. “Now you’ve got to have a rocket.”

Many self-professed “space geeks” say the possibility that entrepreneurs like Richard Branson of the Virgin
Group may help regular people see the black sky—well, regular rich people, at least—has drawn away much of
the excitement that government-financed human space efforts long enjoyed.

“It’s completely shifted,” said Charles Lurio, a space consultant with an interest in private efforts that goes way
beyond ardent. “This is where the action is, not at NASA.”

The new generation of deep-pockets space entrepreneurs includes Mr. Bezos, who founded Blue Origin, in
Washington State, and quietly announced this year that he had bought 165,000 acres of land in West Texas as a
base for his eventual launching operations.

Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal, created the rocket company SpaceX, and John Carmack, the creator of
computer games like Doom and Quake, has been testing rocket designs through his company, Armadillo
Aerospace near Dallas.

The engine for Mr. Allen’s craft was developed by SpaceDev, a company formed as a second act by another
computer entrepreneur turned space man, Jim Benson. And Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, recently
joined the board of the X Prize Foundation.

The rise of the space money men is a unique moment in history, said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, a co-founder of
the X Prize. “There is sufficient wealth controlled by individuals to start serious space efforts,” he said.

What’s more, they are frustrated, he went on, adding: “The dreams and expectations that Apollo launched for
all these entrepreneurs have failed to materialize. And in fact, those who look into it realize that the cost of
going into space has gone up and the reliability has, effectively, gone down.”

For Mr. Allen, 52, SpaceShipOne was no set-it-and-forget-it bauble of a project. It was an expression of a
lifelong passion, he said, a “love of science and technology, and what can be done with engineering.”

From The New York Times. © 2019 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used under license.

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AP English Language and Composition Practice Exam 37

 Source C
Pappalardo, Joe. Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight. Abrams Press, 2017.

The following is excerpted from a book about advances in spaceflight.

SpaceX’s footprint at Cape Canaveral is getting larger. The company is planning a new launch control center,
the details of which became public in the form on an environmental review. The first renders resemble a giant
water tower with the curves of a Martian vehicle from The War of the Worlds, standing as high as three
hundred feet over Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX calls it “a very uniquely shaped building with limited
windows” and adds that, “mitigation to reduce bird collisions will be addressed in the final design.”

Why does it have to be so big? “The launch and landing control center would be of sufficient size to host a data
center; firing room; engineering room; control center for Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon; customer control
center; temporary customer offices; and indoor and outdoor meeting space,” the company says in the
environmental impact report.

SpaceX’s expansion at Kennedy anticipates a ferocious satellite launch schedule. “There are over 70 missions
on its manifest from commercial and government customers in the U.S. and countries around the world,
representing more than $10 billion under contract,” SpaceX says in the report.

SpaceX plans on building a 133,000-square-foot hangar to handle these customers. “With plans to refurbish
and reuse Falcon vehicles to support manifest rate, an additional vehicle processing and storage facility is
required,” the report says.

Fitting the company’s sense of its place in history, SpaceX company is reserving an area to serve as a “rocket
garden” to display its retired, trailblazing spacecraft to visitors. There’s a similar such garden at Kennedy
Space Center’s visitor’s center, which tells you something about the place SpaceX sees itself in aerospace
history.

This is not just hubris. Musk and SpaceX have changed the trajectory of spaceflight, not just in the United
States but across the world. The increase in launch competition and drop in launch prices is called the “SpaceX
effect” for good reason. And the company is poised to keep going, using the profits from paying customers to
create even more ambitious rockets and spacecraft meant to carry people.

In 2019 the company will launch astronauts to the International Space Station, proving its human-rated Dragon
capsule is ready for customer rental. What the company does with a crew-rated capsule will be sure to capture
headlines, and already has.

In fall 2018, SpaceX announces the identity of the first private passenger it intends to shoot into space:
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The passenger comes on stage to reveal that he will fund a trip around
the moon and will take six others with him as part of a global art project in 2023. “I choose to go to the moon,”
Maezawa says during the announcement. “With artists!”

This isn’t a stunt, this is a customer. The whole point of the private space movement is that anyone could pay
for a ticket for any reason. The old idea that space is reserved for stern-faced scientists and military
pilots—and any other flight is silly—is an archaic, vanishing distinction.

SPACEPORT EARTH by Joe Pappalardo. Copyright © 2017, 2019 Joe Pappalardo. Used by permission of Abrams Press, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
New York. All rights reserved.

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38 AP English Language and Composition Practice Exam

 Source D
Federal Aviation Administration. The Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation:
2018. Jan. 2018, www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/media/
2018_AST_Compendium.pdf.

The following is excerpted from a government report about commercial flights to space. Suborbital reusable vehicles
(SRVs) are commercially developed reusable space vehicles that travel just beyond the threshold of space, about 100
km (62 mi) above the Earth.

U.S.-based providers of SRVs

Announced
Maximum
Operator Vehicle Seats* Price Operational
Payload kg (lb)
Year
Blue Origin New Shepard 6 22.7 (50)** TBD 2017
Masten Space Systems Xodiac N/A TBD TBD 2016
UP Aerospace SpaceLoft XL N/A 36 (79) $350,000 per launch 2006 (actual)
6 passengers
Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo 600 (1,323) $250,000 per seat 2018
2 crew
6 passengers
World View Voyager TBD $75,000 2018
2 crew

* Spaceflight participants only; several vehicles are piloted. ** Net of payload infrastructure

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AP English Language and Composition Practice Exam 39

 Source E
Toos, Andrew. “Their Lowest Cost Vacation Yet.” 4 Nov. 2011,
www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref!aton3069.

The following is a cartoon about space tourism.

www.CartoonStock.com

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40 AP English Language and Composition Practice Exam

 Source F
Al-Rodhan, Nayef. “The Privatization of Space: When Things Go Wrong.” Center for Security
Studies 14 Aug. 2015, isnblog.ethz.ch/technology/power-vertical-or-power-
horizontal-russias-challenge-to-the-international-order.

The following is excerpted from an editorial by a member of an international security policies think tank.

A few weeks ago, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying an unmanned Dragon capsule destined for the
International Space Station (ISS) exploded. The explosion was likely caused by a failed strut. In October of
last year, Orbital Sciences had a rocket destined for the ISS explode for unrelated reasons, just after they were
awarded a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. In the wake of these incidents, it may be time to assess the
implications of private sector involvement in state-sponsored space programs.

Over the past few years, private companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have been hailed as the new
major players in space. Indeed, they are effectively changing how space exploration is conducted and how
related technology is developed and implemented. From an operational point of view, private companies are
able to implement decisions and fund projects much faster than most governments can.

These companies have been able to complete missions that only governments had been able to previously, and
have garnered major contracts with NASA. But although this takes pressure off of governments and introduces
a more competitive environment for space-related innovation, outsourcing government projects can lead to
complications, or at the very least, a shift in how space exploration is conducted.

The most cited benefit of the shift to private space exploration is cost. These companies must bid for NASA
contracts, which lowers the taxpayer cost of these missions, as some research and development R&D costs are
absorbed by the company. Governments and private companies also function differently in terms of the
different interest groups to whom they are responsible. NASA is beholden to the government and the taxpayer,
while private companies must deal with a more complex web of investors/shareholders, the bottom line, and the
need to keep a secure contract. Yet with these benefits, there are new challenges that must be addressed;
perhaps the greatest of which is “what happens when something goes wrong”? Rocket missions and space
travel are inherently difficult and risky; it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a bigger issue. . . .

So far, SpaceX has had a practically flawless track record: under contract with NASA, it has already made
seven trips to the ISS. NASA has a strong vested interest in these companies, even geopolitically speaking, as
they end the Russian monopoly in supplying the ISS. SpaceX plans on sending humans to space in 2017, and
NASA has publicly said that this last incident will not hinder that goal.

So far, so good. While these companies remain private, they still have to answer to their investors, and to
governments, but otherwise have quite a large amount of freedom. What will happen when they go on the
market? Overnight, the company would have to answer to its shareholders and function in a very different
dynamic. The bottom line for a company is arguably more intensely scrutinized than where a government is
investing its tax dollars. Given the benefits of private space exploration, it would behoove the government to
stand behind such companies when things do go wrong.

Used by permission.

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AP English Language and Composition Practice Exam 41