晨讀英語(yǔ)美文60篇55 NASA’s 2018 Project

[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.

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