VOA慢速英语2011--After 30 Years, the Space Shuttle Progra

EXPLORATIONS - After 30 Years, the Space Shuttle Program Retires

MARIO RITTER: I'm Mario Ritter.
BARBARA KLEIN: And I'm Barbara Klein with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. This week, we talk about the final American space shuttle flight. Last week, space shuttle Atlantis returned to Kennedy Space Center in Florida after thirteen days in space. It was the last of one hundred thirty five flights for the world's first reusable space vehicle design.
But as one historic program came to an end this month, others continue to explore new worlds. The American space agency's Dawn spacecraft began circling Vesta, a member of the asteroid¹ belt that orbits the sun.
MARIO RITTER: And we mark an anniversary. It has been one year on Neptune² since that planet was discovered. Neptune, however, is the farthest planet from the sun. It is so distant, in fact, that one hundred sixty-five years have passed on Earth since its discovery.
(MUSIC)
Shuttle Farewell
BARBARA KLEIN: Sometimes the high technology of space exploration hides the human side of efforts to reach toward the stars. But, the space shuttle program has come to represent the success, and tragedy, of discovery at the limits of our world.
MARIO RITTER: The first shuttle flight was nearly perfect.
(LAUNCH SOUND)
The National Aeronautics³ and Space Administration, NASA, launched Columbia from Kennedy Space Center on April twelfth nineteen eighty-one. The nation watched on television. The shuttle launch marked the completion of goals set nearly ten years earlier.
Columbia raced into the sky and into history. Its two million five hundred thousand moving parts made it the most complex and costly⁴ vehicle ever made. The spacecraft would repeat its first success twenty-seven times.
But Columbia and a crew of seven astronauts were lost on its twenty-eighth mission. On February first, two thousand three, Columbia broke up as it reentered the atmosphere.
The accident sped the retirement⁵ of NASA's remaining three shuttles.
BARBARA KLEIN: Seventeen years earlier, America mourned another accident. On January twenty-eight nineteen eighty-six, shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after take off.
President Ronald Reagan spoke⁶ of the lost crew.
RONALD REAGAN: "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us with the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them. Nor the last time we saw them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye. And slipped the surly bonds of earth, to touch the face of God."
Both accidents showed the danger of manned space flight. But NASA studied its mistakes and worked to correct them.
After the Challenger tragedy, Endeavor was built at a cost of one point seven billion dollars. A total of six shuttles were built. The first, Enterprise, was a test model. NASA says the program cost about one hundred fourteen billion dollars over thirty years.
MARIO RITTER: Discovery holds the record for most shuttle flights with thirty-nine. It spent a total of one full year in space. Five shuttles have carried over three hundred fifty astronauts. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in nineteen eighty-three. Forty-eight women have followed her.
Astronauts representing sixteen countries have flown in space shuttles. The spacecraft helped build the International Space Station, repair the Hubble Space Telescope and launched many satellites and space probes.
So as Atlantis landed for the final time, Astronaut Chris Ferguson simply said "Mission complete, Houston."
CHRIS FERGUSON: "Mission complete, Houston. After serving the world for over thirty years, the space shuttle has earned its place in history, and it has come to a final stop."
(MUSIC)
Dawn to Vesta
BARBARA KLEIN: Another historic event took place on July fifteenth. The American space agency’s Dawn spacecraft began an extended orbit around the asteroid Vesta.
Marc Rayman is chief engineer of the project.
MARC RAYMAN: “This is the first time a spacecraft has orbited a body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. And so to me one of the things that’s so neat about this mission is we’re visiting one of the last unexplored worlds in the inner Solar System.”
Asteroids⁷ are pieces of rock that orbit the sun. They sometimes are called planetoids, or small planets.
Dawn was sent to the asteroid belt in search of information that may help scientists better understand how our solar system was formed. Marc Rayman says Vesta was chosen as Dawn’s first stop because of its special qualities.
MARC RAYMAN: “Many people think of asteroids as sort of little chips of rock, right? That’s how they’re depicted⁸ in movies, maybe the size of a building or a mountain or something like that. But Vesta is not like that. This is a very big place. It’s more than three hundred thirty miles, or five hundred thirty kilometers in diameter and it’s got twice the surface area of California.”
MARIO RITTER: Vesta is the second largest asteroid in the asteroid belt. Many scientists believe asteroids are space objects that never combined with other material to form a planet. More than seven thousand asteroids have now been identified. Most are less than one hundred kilometers wide.
Marc Rayman says Vesta appears to have a layered structure, one that is similar to planets like Earth, Mars and Venus.
Scientists have repeatedly studied Vesta since its discovery more than two hundred years ago. Most of what is known about it was learned through telescopic images. NASA hopes that Dawn’s year long orbit around Vesta will help scientists learn more about the development of the solar system, and how asteroids and other space objects were created.
BARBARA KLEIN: NASA launched Dawn from Cape⁹ Canaveral in Florida four years ago. The spacecraft had to travel about three billion kilometers to reach Vesta. The spacecraft will move closer and closer to the asteroid until it is eventually within one hundred twenty kilometers of Vesta’s surface.
After Dawn has finished collecting information, it will move on to explore its next target.
MARC RAYMAN: “We will use the tremendous capabilities¹⁰ of this ion propulsion system to climb out of orbit around Vesta, travel for almost another three years through the asteroid belt to dwarf¹¹ planet Ceres and then go into orbit around Ceres and undertake the same kind of measurements there that we’ll be doing at Vesta. And that will make Dawn the first spacecraft ever to orbit two different Solar System destinations.”
Ceres was once considered the largest asteroid. It was discovered in eighteen oh-one. Now it is defined as a dwarf planet.
(MUSIC)
Happy Birthday, Neptune!
MARIO RITTER: This month, Neptune completed one full orbit around the sun since its discovery one hundred sixty-five years ago. The big, blue, icy planet was first discovered in eighteen forty-six.
Neptune remains¹² the first, and only, planet found with math. The French mathematician¹³ Urbain Le Verrier predicted its existence while studying the unusual orbital movements of the planet Uranus¹⁴. He believed a more distant planet was affecting Uranus’ motion. He sent his predictions to a German astronomer¹⁵ at the Berlin Observatory¹⁶.
Using information from Le Verrier, Johann Galle saw Neptune for the first time on September twenty-third, eighteen forty-six. A British astronomer named John Couch Adams had also predicted Neptune’s position in space. Both are given credit for first predicting the position.
BARBARA KLEIN: Neptune is named for the Roman god of the sea. The planet's orbit lies about four billion five hundred million kilometers from the sun. That is about thirty times further away than Earth. Neptune is the most distant member of our solar system. It cannot be seen from Earth without the aid of binoculars¹⁷ or a telescope.
The planet’s atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen, helium and methane¹⁸. Its blue-green color is caused by methane gases in the outer atmosphere.
Most of what we know about Neptune comes from NASA's Voyager Two spacecraft. It was the first and only space probe to visit the planet in nineteen eighty-nine.
MARIO RITTER: Thirteen known moons circle Neptune. The largest of these is called Triton. It was discovered just days after Neptune’s discovery in eighteen forty-six. Voyager Two discovered six of the moons during its flight around the planet. It also confirmed the existence of rings around the planet.
Neptune is one of four planets known as the gas giants. The other three are Jupiter, Saturn¹⁹ and Uranus. These planets are made up almost entirely²⁰ of gas. They are also four to twelve times the size of earth.
Earlier this month, on July twelfth, Neptune reached the same area in the sky that it occupied when it was first observed by Johann Galle. So this year, you could say, Neptune is celebrating its first birthday since being discovered.
BARBARA KLEIN: This program was written by June Simms. I’m Barbara Klein with Mario Ritter who is also our producer. Find links to NASA's space shuttle pages and also images of Neptune at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for more Explorations in VOA Special English.

1 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。

2 Neptune   

n.海王星

参考例句：

• Neptune is the furthest planet from the sun.海王星是离太阳最远的行星。
• Neptune turned out to be a dynamic,stormy world.海王星原来是个有生气、多风暴的世界。

3 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。

4 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

5 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 asteroids   

n.小行星( asteroid的名词复数 )；海盘车，海星

参考例句：

• Asteroids,also known as "minor planets",are numerous in the outer space. 小行星，亦称为“小型行星”，在外太空中不计其数。
• Most stars probably have their quota of planets, meteorids, comets, and asteroids. 多数恒星也许还拥有若干行星、流星、彗星和小行星。

8 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。

9 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

10 capabilities   

n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities. 他有点自大，自视甚高。 来自辞典例句
• Some programmers use tabs to break complex product capabilities into smaller chunks. 一些程序员认为，标签可以将复杂的功能分为每个窗格一组简单的功能。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

11 dwarf   

n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小

参考例句：

• The dwarf's long arms were not proportional to his height.那侏儒的长臂与他的身高不成比例。
• The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. 矮子耸耸肩膀，摇摇头。

12 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

13 mathematician   

n.数学家

参考例句：

• The man with his back to the camera is a mathematician.背对着照相机的人是位数学家。
• The mathematician analyzed his figures again.这位数学家再次分析研究了他的这些数字。

14 Uranus   

n.天王星

参考例句：

• Uranus is unusual because it is tilted.天王星非常特殊，因为它是倾斜的。
• Uranus represents sudden change and rebellion.天王星代表突然性的改变和反叛。

15 astronomer   

n.天文学家

参考例句：

• A new star attracted the notice of the astronomer.新发现的一颗星引起了那位天文学家的注意。
• He is reputed to have been a good astronomer.他以一个优秀的天文学者闻名于世。

16 observatory   

n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台

参考例句：

• Guy's house was close to the observatory.盖伊的房子离天文台很近。
• Officials from Greenwich Observatory have the clock checked twice a day.格林威治天文台的职员们每天对大钟检查两次。

17 binoculars   

n.双筒望远镜

参考例句：

• He watched the play through his binoculars.他用双筒望远镜看戏。
• If I had binoculars,I could see that comet clearly.如果我有望远镜，我就可以清楚地看见那颗彗星。

18 methane   

n.甲烷，沼气

参考例句：

• The blast was caused by pockets of methane gas that ignited.爆炸是由数袋甲烷气体着火引起的。
• Methane may have extraterrestrial significance.甲烷具有星际意义。

19 Saturn   

n.农神，土星

参考例句：

• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings.天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。
• These comparisons suggested that Saturn is made of lighter materials.这些比较告诉我们，土星由较轻的物质构成。

20 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。