《英语流行话题阅读:语境识词3500》Unit 38 普通人的太空行

　　Unit 38
Space Voyage for the Average Joe and Mary
Forty-one years after the original space race began with the  launch of the Russian Sputnik, the world's first satellite, a new race  has emerged. Its goal is to make space flight accessible to the  average Joe or Mary -- by offering a $10 million cash prize to the  first person to design a spaceship that can take three passengers into  space and back. It will do for space flight what PCs did for computers  -- take it out of the control of governments and very big companies  and put it in the hands of average people.
"The biggest obstacle to opening up space flight is money,"  says the CEO of the X Prize Foundation, a non-profit organization  that's putting up the X Prize money.
Since the beginning of the space age, the cost of space flight  hasn't changed much, and that's because there hasn't been enough  flights to force the cost down. So, in an effort to stimulate¹ less  expensive spaceship designs, the Foundation has organized a  competition: Ten million dollars will go to the first person or team  that designs a spaceship capable of launching three passengers to an  altitude of 100 km. At that altitude, passengers would get to  experience about four minutes of weightlessness and get a view of the  Earth.
The emphasis of the competition is on the spaceship's  reusability, an ideal that was not quite reached by the current NASA  apace shuttle, whose fuel tanks are tossed in midflight as are its  rocket boosters which are partly reusable. The reusability of this  next wave of spacecraft will help develop commercial markets, which is  believed to be space tourism.
The competition itself is actually modeled on the Orteig  International Prize of 1927, which promoted Charles Lindbergh's famous  non-stop flight from New York to Paris 71 years ago on the Spirit of  St. Louis. The $25,000 cash prize stimulated² nine attempts to cross  the Atlantic and the investment of $400,000 in aeronautic³ design. The  prize was one of over 100 aviation prizes offered between 1905 and  1935, which created today's $250 billion aeronautics⁴ industry. In an  effort to repeat history, after the X Prize is awarded to individuals  who have make the greatest contributions to commercial human space  flight.
Once the cost of putting something into space goes down, the  number of things you can afford to do goes up greatly. It's a new ear  of spacecraft design, in which spaceships can be treated more like  aircraft and the passengers won't be professional astronauts, but  adventure seekers or space enthusiasts⁵.

1 stimulate   

vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋

参考例句：

• Your encouragement will stimulate me to further efforts.你的鼓励会激发我进一步努力。
• Success will stimulate the people for fresh efforts.成功能鼓舞人们去作新的努力。

2 stimulated   

a.刺激的

参考例句：

• The exhibition has stimulated interest in her work. 展览增进了人们对她作品的兴趣。
• The award has stimulated her into working still harder. 奖金促使她更加努力地工作。

3 aeronautic   

adj.航空（学）的

参考例句：

• Something akin to panic swept the National Aeronautic and Space Agency. 一种近乎恐慌的心情席卷了国家宇航局。 来自辞典例句
• They are widely used in electronic instruments aeronautic instruments etc. 此类轴承在各类电子仪器中得以广泛运用。 来自互联网

4 aeronautics   

n.航空术，航空学

参考例句：

• National Aeronautics and Space undertakings have made great progress.国家的航空航天事业有了很大的发展。
• He devoted every spare moment to aeronautics.他把他所有多余的时间用在航空学上。

5 enthusiasts   

n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A group of enthusiasts have undertaken the reconstruction of a steam locomotive. 一群火车迷已担负起重造蒸汽机车的任务。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Now a group of enthusiasts are going to have the plane restored. 一群热心人计划修复这架飞机。 来自新概念英语第二册