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VOA慢速英语2012 EXPLORATIONS - NASA and the Early Apollo Flights of the 1960s

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EXPLORATIONS - NASA and the Early Apollo Flights of the 1960s

BARBARA KLEIN: I'm Barbara Klein.

STEVE EMBER: And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. The nineteen sixties were exciting times in space exploration. Today look back at the first flights of the Apollo program designed to land humans on the moon.

(MUSIC)

BARBARA KLEIN: The decision to go to the moon was made in May, nineteen sixty-one. President John Kennedy set the goal in a speech to Congress and the American people.

JOHN KENNEDY: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long range exploration of space. And none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. "

STEVE EMBER: At the time President Kennedy first spoke1 about landing humans on the moon, the Soviet2 space program seemed far ahead. The Soviet Union had put the first satellite into Earth orbit. A Soviet spacecraft was the first to land instruments on the moon. And a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was the first man in space.

The United States had sent an astronaut of its own into space for the first time in nineteen sixty-one. Alan Shepard made only a fifteen-minute flight in the little one-man Mercury3 spacecraft. But his flight gave Americans the feeling that the United States could pull ahead of the Soviet Union in the space race.

There was great public support for President Kennedy's moon landing goal. And Congress was ready to spend the thousands of millions of dollars that a moon landing program would cost.

(MUSIC)

BARBARA KLEIN: Much happened in the months after America decided4 to go to the moon. New space flight centers were built. Designs for launch rockets and spacecraft were agreed on. And a new spaceflight program -- Project Gemini -- was begun. Flights in the two-man Gemini spacecraft tested the men, equipment and methods to be used in the Apollo program to the moon. Gemini let astronauts learn about the dangers of radiation and the effects of being weightless during long flights. Astronauts learned to move their spacecraft into different orbits and to join with other spacecraft.

STEVE EMBER: While the Gemini program prepared astronauts for Apollo flights, NASA engineers were designing and building the Apollo spacecraft. It was really two spacecraft. One was a cone-shaped command module5. The astronauts would ride to the moon in the command module. And they would return home in it. The second craft was a moon-landing vehicle. Two astronauts would ride in it from the orbiting command module to the moon's surface. Later, the landing vehicle would carry them back to the command module for the return trip to Earth.

BARBARA KLEIN: Engineers also were working on a huge new rocket for Apollo. It needed much more power than the rockets used to launch the one-man Mercury and the two-man Gemini flights. The Apollo rocket was called Saturn6. Two Saturn rocket systems were built. One was the Saturn One-B. It did not have enough power to reach the moon. But it could launch Apollo spacecraft on test flights around the Earth. 

The other was the Saturn Five. It would be the one to launch astronauts to the moon. Saturn One-B rockets launched six unmanned Apollo spacecraft. The test flights showed that all the rocket engines worked successfully. They also showed that the Apollo spacecraft could survive the launch and could re-enter Earth's atmosphere safely.

STEVE EMBER: By the end of nineteen sixty-six, NASA officials considered the Apollo spacecraft ready for test flights by astronauts. Three astronauts were named for the first manned Apollo test flight: Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. Four weeks before the flight, the three men were in the command module at Cape7 Kennedy, Florida. They were testing equipment for the flight.

Suddenly, fire broke out in the spacecraft. When rescuers got the door open, they found the flames had killed the three astronauts. Grissom, White and Chaffee were the first Americans to die in the space program.

(MUSIC)

BARBARA KLEIN: Engineers redesigned and rebuilt the Apollo command module. They designed a new door that could be opened more quickly. They improved the electrical wiring. And they used only materials that would not burn easily. By November, nineteen sixty-seven, the moon launch rocket, Saturn Five, was ready for a test flight. It thundered into space perfectly8, pushing an unmanned Apollo spacecraft more than eighteen thousand kilometers up into the atmosphere.

STEVE EMBER: The huge Saturn rocket, as tall as a thirty-six-floor building, was the heaviest thing ever to leave Earth. It weighed more than two million seven hundred thousand kilograms. The noise of its rockets was one of the loudest man-made sounds ever created. 

At the end of the test flight, the speed of the Apollo spacecraft was increased to forty thousand kilometers an hour. That was the speed of a spacecraft returning from the moon. The spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere without damage. Apollo flights Five and Six tested the moon-landing module and the Saturn Five rocket.

BARBARA KLEIN: Astronauts first flew in the Apollo spacecraft in October, nineteen sixty-eight. Apollo Seven astronauts Walter Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele spent eleven days orbiting the Earth. They tested the spacecraft systems. And they broadcast, for the first time, live television pictures of men in orbit. Everything worked perfectly.

STEVE EMBER: The successful flight of Apollo Seven led NASA officials to send the next flight, Apollo Eight, to the moon. The launch was early on the morning of December twenty-first, nineteen sixty-eight. Millions of people were watching on television.

Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were in the spacecraft at the top of the Saturn Five rocket. NASA officials counted down the seconds: five, four, three, two, one. The mighty9 engines fired. Slowly the giant rocket lifted off the Earth.

BARBARA KLEIN: Three hours later, NASA officials told the crew that everything was "OK" for what they called TLI, or trans-lunar injection. This meant the Apollo Eight astronauts could fire the rocket that would send them from Earth orbit toward the moon. Less than three days later, Apollo Eight was orbiting the moon. The American spacecraft was just one hundred ten kilometers from its surface.

On December twenty-fourth, the astronauts made a television broadcast to Earth. They described the moon's surface as a strange, gray, lonely place. And, as they talked, people on Earth could see pictures of the moon on their television sets.

FRANK BORMAN: "And from the crew of Apollo Eight, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

Apollo Eight returned to Earth without problems. It landed in the Pacific Ocean near a waiting ship.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: Apollo Eight showed that humans could travel to the moon and return safely. The next step was to test the lunar landing craft.

That was the job of the astronauts of Apollo Nine: James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart. They spent ten days in Earth orbit during March, nineteen sixty-nine.

During the flight, they separated the lunar lander from the command module and flew it for eight hours. They tested all its systems. Then, they joined the two spacecraft together again, just as astronauts would do after a moon landing.

Engineers decided that after Apollo Nine, one more test flight was needed. They wanted to test the landing module near the moon. So astronauts Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan did that during the flight of Apollo Ten.

BARBARA KLEIN: They reached the moon in May, nineteen sixty-nine. Astronauts Stafford and Cernan entered the landing craft and separated it from the command ship. Stafford and Cernan flew the lander down to only thirteen kilometers from the moon. They described the moon during a radio and television broadcast. "It is like wet clay," they said. "Like a dry river bed in New Mexico or Arizona. It is a beautiful sight."

On May twenty-third, the lander rejoined the command module one hundred kilometers above the moon. Apollo Ten started for home. The final testing was done. Apollo was ready to land on the moon. That will be our story next week.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: This program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano and produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Barbara Klein.

BARBARA KLEIN: And I'm Steve Ember. You can find other programs about the American space program at our web site, www.voanews.cn. Join us again next week as we continue the story of the Apollo space flights on EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 spoke XryyC     
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。
2 Soviet Sw9wR     
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。
3 mercury NouzIB     
n.汞,水银,水银柱
参考例句:
  • The liquid we can see in thermometers is mercury.我们看到的温度计里的液体是水银。
  • Mercury has a much greater density than water.水银的密度比水大得多。
4 decided lvqzZd     
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。
5 module iEjxj     
n.组件,模块,模件;(航天器的)舱
参考例句:
  • The centre module displays traffic guidance information.中央模块显示交通引导信息。
  • Two large tanks in the service module held liquid oxygen.服务舱的两个大气瓶中装有液态氧。
6 Saturn tsZy1     
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。
7 cape ITEy6     
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。
8 perfectly 8Mzxb     
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
  • Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。
9 mighty YDWxl     
adj.强有力的;巨大的
参考例句:
  • A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
  • The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

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