Read the passage.

excerpt from "rice stadium moon speech" by president john f. kennedy, september 12, 1962

we meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. the greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

no man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. christianity began less than two years ago. the printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.

newton explored the meaning of gravity. last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if america's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

this is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

which statement provides the most accurate evaluation of how the analogy in paragraphs 3 and 4 affects kennedy’s speech?

a. by carefully explaining how progress has occurred steadily through time, kennedy wishes to slow down the race toward space exploration.

b. by clearly demonstrating how fast mankind has progressed in recent years, kennedy hopes to demonstrate that the next logical step is to conquer space.

c. by explaining that human progress is largely a mystery, kennedy develops the idea that exploring the unknowns of space is a natural progression.

d. by showing the difference between early man and modern man, kennedy suggests that mankind still has a good deal of progress to make before attempting space travel.