晨读英语美文60篇六级55（在线收听）

[00:00.00]科技：度海量天

[00:11.21]Fly to the Moon—NASA’s 2018 Project

[00:17.67]It will cost $104 billion over the next decade

[00:24.01]to send astronauts back to the moon,

[00:26.52]NASA’s chief said,

[00:28.17]defending the price tag as an investment the nation

[00:31.65]can afford despite the expense of Hurricane Katrina.

[00:35.26]The new moon exploration plan unveiled

[00:39.08]by the space agency will use beefed-up shuttle and Apollo parts

[00:43.75]and aims to put people on the moon by 2018.

[00:47.57]“There will be a lot more hurricanes

[00:50.44]and a lot more other natural disasters

[00:53.15]to befall the United States and the world in that time,

[00:56.13]I hope none worse than Katrina,”

[00:58.96]NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said at a news conference.

[01:02.67]“But the space program is a long-term investment in our future.

[01:07.06]We must deal with our short-term problems

[01:10.23]while not sacrificing our long-term investments in our future.

[01:14.27]When we have a hurricane,

[01:16.14]we don’t cancel the Air Force.

[01:18.32]We don’t cancel the Navy.

[01:19.96]And we’re not going to cancel NASA.”

[01:22.68]The $104 billion price tag,

[01:25.98]leading up to an initial four-person lunar landing

[01:29.58]and spread over 13 years,

[01:31.78]represents 55 percent of what the Apollo program

[01:36.04]would cost in today’s dollars, Griffin said.

[01:38.65]Apollo development spanned eight years,

[01:41.62]from 1961 to the first manned moon landing in 1969.

[01:47.09]The new space vehicle design uses shuttle rocket parts,

[01:51.90]an Apollo-style capsule and a lander

[01:54.62]capable of carrying four people to the moon.

[01:57.38]The rockets—there would be two,

[02:00.09]a small version for people and a heftier one for cargo—

[02:04.03]would eclipse the 18-story space shuttle.

[02:07.66]The larger one, in fact,

[02:09.08]would come close to the 36-story Saturn 5 moon rocket.

[02:13.46]They would be built from shuttle booster rockets,

[02:16.72]fuel tanks and main engines,

[02:19.45]as well as moon rocket engines.

[02:20.99]The so-called crew exploration vehicle perched on top

[02:25.25]would look very much like an Apollo capsule, albeit larger.

[02:29.65]The crew exploration vehicle would replace the space shuttle,

[02:34.13]due to be retired in 2010,

[02:36.74]but not before 2012 and possibly as late as 2014

[02:42.65]depending on the money available, Griffin said.

[02:45.92]It could carry as many as six astronauts back and forth to the international space station.

[02:51.94]If all goes well,

[02:53.70]the first crew would set off for the moon by 2018—or 2020 at the latest,

[03:00.90]the year targeted by President Bush who proposed such an initiative.

[03:05.60]The same type of vessel could be used,

[03:08.90]one day, to transport astronauts to Mars.

[03:11.73]The new exploration plan would allow four astronauts to stay on the moon for a week—

[03:17.86]twice as long as Apollo missions.

[03:20.39]It also would haul considerably more cargo,

[03:23.34]much of which would be left on the moon for future crews.

[03:26.61]In time, lunar stays of up to six months would be possible.