Read the excerpt from the passage Moon Mission. NASA sees Gateway as a base for staging missions beyond the moon. What’s the nex
t stop? Mars. The space agency plans to build a special craft for the trip. The Deep Space Transport will carry astronauts from Gateway to the Red Planet and back. This will reduce the enormous cost of shuttling supplies for a Mars mission all the way from Earth. The Mars transport could even expand its size by attaching one of Gateway’s habitat modules. Which statement is a central idea supported by the details in the excerpt? Gateway was designed to conduct an exploration of Mars. The trip to Mars for exploration is extremely expensive. Gateway is only the beginning of NASA’s space exploration plans. Exploring Mars is more important than exploring the moon.
