Use of English PRO

President John F Kennedy rose quickly to (0) A new challenge presented (1) ............ the British and French governments (2) ............ a deal to build the first supersonic passenger aircraft. The airliner, which was to be called Concorde, would be able to fly at more than twice the speed of sound and would be the (3) ............ advanced civilian aircraft in the world. Russia (4) ............ also creating a supersonic passenger plane, the TU-144. For the United States of America, (5) ............ beaten by the Russians was simply unacceptable: America's quest for a supersonic airliner became almost as important as the race (6) ............ the Moon. The American Government promised to pay 75% of the cost of the programme if either one of the two companies selected, Boeing or Lockheed, could produce a design that would rival Concorde. Those companies had previously carried out research in the 1950s and some jet fighters (7) ............ already achieved supersonic speeds using the Delta Wing design (8) ............ than the traditional fixed wing usually seen on airliners.