PT131 · S3 · Q18 Those who claim that governments

I would stop reading after the first five words. This argument isn't about whether governments should / shouldn't be prevented from investing in something. It's about whether they should / shouldn't keep investing in something. The author isn't saying "we shouldn't prevent governments from investing; let them invest if they choose to". He's saying, "we should encourage governments to invest".

Too Strong: "never underestimate the consequences" Bad Conclusion Match First of all, this is pretty expansive. There might be narrow cases of governments supporting ambitious undertakings other than space exploration that the author doesn't like. Secondly, we need a principle that instructs governments to invest in a certain type of investment. This is a principle that tells us how optimistic we should / shouldn't be about the government.

Too Strong: "the less practical, the more unexpected" Bad Conclusion Match These constant-relationship formulations are really strong. The author hasn't committed herself to this sliding scale of "x units less practical = x units more unexpected consequences". Also, again we're lacking a principle that guides the government in terms of what they should invest in.

Do we know that space exploration is an ambitious technological undertaking? Yes, common sense knows that. Did they say it? No, so this is not as tempting as a choice like (D) that uses language that matches up with the explicit premise. This is a very expansive rule that would cover not just space exploration (which has yielded useful technologies) but any other ambitious technological undertaking. The author isn't necessarily giving the government a blank check to spend money on any ambitious technological problem. She is saying "let's keep spending money on space exploration, because it has yielded very widespread, beneficial technologies."