Passage B: Questions 41-45        The first organisms to travel from Earth to space were not human beings but fruit flies. In 1947,the United States military launched a rocket into space containing the fruit flies to test the effects ofradiation at high altitudes. The rocket traveled 109 kilometers and opened its parachute. Scientistsrecovered the fruit flies, which were still alive after their space journey.        In order to test whether space travel would be safe for human beings, scientists sent manyanimals into space after the fruit flies experiment. In the early 1950s, both the United States and theSoviet Union sent mice into space and by the end of the decade started sending dogs and monkeystoo. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a spacecraft into orbit with a dog on board named Laika.Although the orbit was successful, Laika died because scientists did not yet know how to safelyland and recover an orbiting spacecraft to Earth.        In December of 1958, America's space agency, NASA, launched a monkey into space. Themonkey, named Gordo, survived the intense physical pressure of being launched into space andcoming back to Earth. However, Gordo's rocket did not deploy its parachute properly due to amalfunction and his spacecraft sank into the ocean.        During the 1960s, both the United States and Soviet Union were in a race to land a person onthe moon. This competition, also called ~the space race" meant that scientists had to find out muchmore information about space travel. As a result, many more animals were launched into space aspart of experiments.        In April of 1960, the Soviets launched two dogs, Belka and Strelka into space and they werethe first animals to return to Farth alive. The Soviet leader at the time gave one of Strelka's pups tothe American president's wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, as a present.        The Americans trained a chimpanzee named Ham to push buttons and pull switches. Scientistswanted to see if it was possible for humans to perform tasks while in space. Up until then,astronauts mainly sat still during spaceflight and did not do anything except during the launch andlanding stages of their flight. Ham performed his tasks successfully in space and NASA used thisinformation when they sent a man to land on the moon in 1969.        These days, animals are still sent to space to gain important information. Frogs, chickens,moths, spiders, scorpions, butterflies, and even turtles have been sent into space within the last tenyears by various countries in Europe as well as Japan, China, and Russia. Because this method isthe safest way of collecting data for future space travel and we can also learn a lot about biology,space animals will likely be used for many more years in the future.
【題組】41. The word "launched" in paragraph 2 could be replaced with:
(A) sent up
(B) went up
(C) sent over
(D) went down