Ejercicio A2 · Inglés PAU Valencia Ordinaria 2022

TEXT A / TEXTO A

“ALEXA, TAKE ME TO THE MOON”

Lockheed Martin, which is building the Orion spacecraft that NASA hopes will fly astronauts to the moon within a couple of years, is partnering with Amazon to put an Alexa on the capsule.

The device would give astronauts real-time information on telemetry, the health of the spacecraft and its speed. It would be possible “for astronauts to ask about the spacecraft, the mission, the subsystems,” Aaron Rubenson, Amazon’s vice president, said. “More importantly, from the crew perspective: What’s that alarm that just went off? Remind me what that is.”

In addition to Alexa, the Orion spacecraft will be outfitted with screens that, like Zoom, allow users to see each other and share critical information. Taken together, the package, known as Callisto, would help translate different languages so astronauts from all over the world could communicate. It would also help controllers on the ground share information over a screen. The platform would also help in overcoming isolation by allowing astronauts to stay and feel connected to their home, family members and friends.

The onboard space Alexa would not be connected to the Internet but instead connect directly to Orion’s computer and its own onboard cloud. Still, it could send queries back to Earth and connect with the cloud to retrieve all sorts of information, such as news, that would help astronauts to feel less lonely. There would be a lag in those queries since data would have to travel from the spacecraft to Earth and then from Earth to the spacecraft.

Adapted from an article by Christian Davenport, The Guardian, 5-1-2022

A2. Are the following statements true (T) or false (F)? Identify the part of the text that supports your answer by copying the exact passage on the answer sheet. (1.5 points: 0.5 each)

a.

It is expected that Orion will fly to the space in 2024.

T

F

b.

Alexa will allow the crew to do videoconferencing.

T

F

c.

There would be real-time communication between Orion and the Earth.

T

F