Space is a dangerous place, not only because of meteors（流星） but also because of rays from the sun and other stars．The atmosphere again acts as our protective blanket on earth．Light gets through, and this is essential（不可缺少的） for plants to make the food which we eat．Heat, too, makes our environment endurable（能持久的）, Various kinds of rays come through the air from outer space, but enormous（巨大的） quantities of radiation from the sun are screened off（用屏幕隔开）．As soon as men leave the atmosphere they are exposed to this radiation but their spacesuit or the walls of their spacecraft, if they are inside, do prevent a lot of radiation damage．
Radiation is the greatest known danger to explorers in space．The unit of radiation is called “rem”．Scientists have reason to think that a man can put up with far more than 0．1 rem without being damaged; the figure of 60 rems has been agreed on．The trouble is that it is extremely difficult to be sure about radiation damage – a person may feel perfectly well, but the cells of his or her sex organs may be damaged, and this will not be discovered until the birth of deformed（畸形的） children or even grandchildren．Missions of the Apollo flights have had to cross belts of high radiation and, during the outward and return journeys, the Apollo crew accumulated（积累） a large amount of rems．So far, no dangerous amounts of radiation have been reported, but the Apollo missions have been quite short．We simply don’t know yet how men are going to get on when they spent weeks and months outside the protection of the atmosphere, working in a space laboratory．Drugs might help to decrease the damage done by radiation, but no really effective ones have been found so far．
1．According to the first paragraph, the atmosphere is essential to man in that ______．
A．it protects him against the harmful rays from space．
B．it provides sufficient（充分的） light for plant growth．
C．it supplies the heat necessary for human survival．
D．it screens off the falling meteors．
2．We know from the passage that___________．
A．exposure（揭露） to even tiny amounts of radiation is fatal（致命的） ．
B．the effect of exposure to radiation is slow in coming．
C．radiation is avoidable in space exploration．
D．astronauts in spacesuit needn’t worry about radiation damage．
3．The harm radiation had done to the Apollo crewmembers ___________．
A．is insignificant（不重要的） B．seems overestimated
C．is enormous D．remains unknown
4．It can be inferred from the passage that ___________．
A．the Apollo mission was very successful．
B．protection from space radiation is no easy job．
C．astronauts will have deformed children or grandchildren．
D．radiation is not a threat to well-protected space explorers．
5．The best title for this passage would be __________．
A．The atmosphere and Our Environment
B．Research on Radiation
C．Effects of Space Radiation
D．Importance of Protection Against Radiation