美国有线新闻 CNN 首次登月最后时刻失败 以色列不放弃计划重来

 

It launched into space in February and circled the earth several times before being slingshotted away. It traveled a total of four million miles and finally reached the moon, but not in the way Israeli scientists hoped it would. Their unmanned privately¹ funded spacecraft was supposed to make a soft controlled landing there, but communication was lost when it was about 500 feet away from the moon's surface. And it was traveling toward it at 310 miles per hour. So, well, boom. If it had been successful, this would have been the first time a private organization made a controlled landing with the smallest budget. Still, the team and their nation's leader have suggested this isn't the end.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There were high hopes and high drama and in the end high disappointment for the people behind this ambitious privately funded $100 million project. From the beginning, it was the case of the little guy shooting for the moon or more precisely² a soft landing on the moon. And they nearly made it with their spacecraft Beresheet which means genesis. There was a crowd that included the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu watching on.

But the team lost contact with the spacecraft in the last moments before the planned touchdown — apparently³ engine problems. And then the descent became uncontrollable and it crashed. In a moment of classic understatement, one of the project managers saying, I'm sorry to say but our spacecraft did not make it in one piece to the moon. If they had, Israel would have been just the fourth country to soft land on the moon after the old Soviet⁴ Union, the U.S. and China. Still though, a major achievement for an upstart group that began eight years ago as part of a Google competition.

They didn't make the deadline for that competition but decided⁵ to keep going with private funding and a lot of good old chutzpah. And they came oh so close to success. Still became only the seventh country to get to the moon if not successfully land on it. A lot of pride in Israel in this project. Plenty of people watching live including schoolkids at the president's home. And those behind the project not letting the less than soft landing put them off. For its part SpaceIL says quote, "Don't stop believing. We will continue to work hard." And then the Prime Minister Netanyahu saying quote, " We will try again. Next time it will be better." A sign perhaps of government involvement going forward quote, "I'm seriously considering investing now in the space program." Michael Holmes, CNN, Jerusalem.

1 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

2 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

3 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

4 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。