BritishsingerSarahBrightmanbegantrainingfora2015flightt...

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British singer Sarah Brightman began training for a 2015 flight to the International Space Station where she hopes to become the first professional musician to sing from space, the company arranging the trip said on Tuesday.

Brightman, a famed soprano (女高音) who starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber' s "Phantom of the Opera" , will pay about $ 52 million for a 10-day stay aboard the orbital outpost, Tom Shelley, president of privately owned Space Adventures, said.

Brightman, who will become the eighth privately funded space tourist, is scheduled to fly in September 2015. Her training to fly on a Russian Soyuz capsule began last fall.

Brightman has planned to be the first professional musician to sing from space. But she faces competition from Lady Gaga, who, according to media reports late last year, intends to be the first when she performs one song in space in early 2015 on a Virgin Galactic flight. Virgin Galactic, part of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, plans to offer suborbital(亚轨道的) space flights.

Brightman said in 2012 that she would travel to the space station, but her plans haven't been confirmed until now. So far. Space Adventures has arranged for nine private missions to the space station, a $ 100 billion research laboratory that flies about 260 miles above the earth. Microsoft co-founder Charles Simonyi made two trips.

Brightman will be the first private citizen to visit the station since Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Lalibarte paid about $ 35 million for an 11-day stay in September 2009.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has an option to fly on the next available Soyuz seat after Brightman, which most likely will be in 2017, Shelley told Reuters.

28. What is the purpose of the passage?

A. To praise Brightman.

B. To persuade the readers that Brightman is more famous than Lady Gaga.

C. To instruct the readers how to begin a space flight.

D. To give some information about Brightman.

29. When did Brightman start training for her space travel?

A. Last winter. B. Last autumn.

C. Next spring. D. Next summer.

30. The underlined word "she" in Paragraph 4 refers to ____.

A. Brightman B. Lady Gaga

C. Andrew Lloyd Webber D. Tom Shelley

31. The fifth paragraph is mainly carried out ____.