Учебник английского языка для технических университетов и вузов Издание шестое, стереотипное
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Прочитайте текст и опишите жилые отсеки Шаттла и Международной кос мической станции. Living Aboard the Space Shuttle and the ISS We often see the cosmonauts carry out their complicated work in space, but what do they do in their off-duty hours? What do they eat, where do they sleep? One of the main features of the Shuttle is the relatively low forces of gravity during launch and reentry. These are about 3 g, that is within the limits that can be withstood by people. Its living accommodation is relatively comfortable. The crew cabin is 71.5 m. There are two floors inside the cabin. On the top level, the commander and pilot monitor and control sophisticated equipment. Behind their seats is a work area where the crew can carry out experiments. The bottom level is the living area. It contains facilities for sleeping, eating and waste disposal. Living in such a kind of cabin requires only ordinary clothing. Air pressure is the same as the Earth’s at sea level. This air is made of 80 % nitrogen and 20 % oxygen. The air is cleaner than the Earth’s. Temperature can be regulated between 16 and 32 °C. The Shuttle meals are eaten in a small dining area consisting of a table and restraints (ограничители) which function as chairs while eating in zero-gravity. Meals are served in a special tray which separates different food containers and keeps them from floating around in the weightless cabin. Most foods can be eaten with ordinary spoons and forks as long as there are no sudden starts and stops. Just as on Earth recreation and sleep are important to good health in space. Different games, books and cassette-recorders to listen to music are available. In zero-gravity there is no «up» position and the cosmonaut is oriented in the sleeping bag as if he or she were sleeping up. Now beds are built into the walls with an individual light, communica tions, fan, sound suppression, blanket and sheets. They even have pillows. Experiences on the space shuttle have helped prepare astro nauts for life aboard the International Space Station. Let’s imagine the life at the station in several years. Life-support systems on the ISS can supply cleaner air, purer water, better food and more sanitary toilet facilities than on the space shuttle. Life aboard the station may not be easy, but it is sig nificantly healthier and more pleasant than in the past, allowing astronauts to focus on the scientific research and station mainte nance that occupy them for about 9 hours a day. The kitchen on the station, for the first time in space history, has refrigerators and freezers. It may not sound like much, but it is a giant step forward. For the first 30 years in space, all food was kept at room temperature. Only now, in the 21st century, can re frigerator allow NASA to supply milk to help with bone loss in space flight. A glass of nice cold milk was asked for years. And the refriger ator proved to be an easier solution than a lot of experiments to make good powdered (порошковое) milk for a number of years. Later in the day, thanks to another kitchen appliance, cosmo nauts will eat a frozen dinner just like the ones sold in supermar kets. The combination convection/microwave oven automatically thaws (размораживать) your food (using heat), than heats it with microwaves (just as they do on Earth). The refrigerator, freezer, and oven mean that astronauts eat a healthier diet. The shuttle food was low in fiber. «The ISS food can overcome that with salads, fruit, vegetables, apples, oranges, etc.,» a space expert had predicted. Now, with these food delivered by the space shuttle a few times a year, you no longer have to take special tablets. There is no dishwasher in the kitchen. Instead, you wash your magnetic silverware (столовые приборы) with antiseptic towelet- tes (салфетка). It does not seem very hygienic, but the shuttle as tronauts just had to lick their silverware clean. The empty food containers will be either ejected into space to burn up on re-entry to the atmosphere or returned to Earth on the shuttle. The next step in life support will be a completely closed air- and-food cycle, with plants grown in space. Plants and microor ganisms could even help remove contaminants from the water sup ply. It is that sort of research that will be necessary if people are ever to establish settlements far beyond Earth. Biological approaches to supplying food, water, and air could not only save power aboard the station, but could also reduce the number of resupply trips required. May be some day astronauts will have fresh bread on the sta tion. But even with today’s frozen dinners, they already spend 4 hours a day on meals and hygiene. Exercise takes 2 hours more a day. That leaves them just an hour of free time for the simple plea sures of life in space: The view of Earth through the window. A let ter e-mailed from their family. Microwave popcorn with a movie. And the friendship of the crew members with whom they share this tiny world. Text 12D Прочитайте текст, выскажите свое мнение о его содержании. Time Travel and New Universes It is known that for a long time well before Albert Einstein scien tists were studying the ideas that seemed strange. Consider a few of such ideas now accepted by the scientific community: clocks that tick slower when they are on rockets in outer space, black holes with the mass of a million stars compressed into a volume smaller than that of atom and subatomic particles whose behaviour de pends on whether they are being watched. But of all strange ideas in physics, perhaps, the strangest one is the hole in the structure of space and time, a tunnel to a distantpart of the universe. American researchers have determined that it will apparently be possible in principle for mankind to create an entirely new universe by using the idea of wormhole (ход, проры тый червем; червоточина) connection. Such a universe will auto matically create its own wormhole, squeeze through it, and then close the hole after it. Although to many people such an idea may seem useless and fantastic, it can help scientists to develop their imagination and ex plore how flexible the laws of physics are. It is such an idea that could give answers to some of the fundamental questions of cos mology: how the universe began, how it works and how it will end. The idea of wormhole comes directly from the accepted con cepts of general relativity. In that theory A.Einstein proved that very massive or dense objects distort space and time around them. One possible distortion is in the form of a tube that can lead any where in the universe — even to a place billions of light years away. The name «wormhole» comes about by analogy: imagine a fly on an apple. The only way the fly can reach the apple’s other side is the long way over the fruit’s surface. But a worm could make a tunnel through the apple and thus shorten the way considerably. A worm hole in space is the same kind of tunnel; it is a shortcut (кратчай шее расстояние) from one part of the universe to another that reduces the travel time to about zero. In fact, instantaneous travel leads to the idea of wormhole as time machine. If it were possible to move one end of a wormhole at nearly the speed of light, then, according to general relativity, time at that end would slow down and that part of the tunnel would be younger than the other end. Anything moving from the faster-aging end of the wormhole to the slower one would essentially go back ward on time. The type of travel, however, could be nothing like the mechanical time machine described by H. Wells. It is difficult to imagine how a human being could move through a wormhole, since it would theoretically be narrower than an atom and it would tend to disappear the instant it formed. ДОПОЛНИТЕЛЬНЫЕ ЗАДАНИЯ Упражнение 1. А. Прочитайте словосочетания из текста 12А и постарай тесь понять значения выделенных слов.
В. Подберите к каждому выделенному в А слову соответствующее ему по значению.
Упражнение 2. Найдите в тексте 12А:
Упражнение 3. А. Прочитайте текст и найдите слова, означающие: height, propelling force, wished, be greater than, pressing, what remains, force di rected forward, remain in space at one place, spending or using, thrust without losses, braking, small (not serious or important). Solar Sails If we are going to open the solar system to rapid economic travel, we need to find advanced space propulsion systems. Solar sails may be among the keys to future interplanetary flights. Solar sail propulsion uses large, lightweight reflectors attached to spacecraft that react to the light pressure from solar photons to obtain thrust. By tilting (наклонять) the sail to change the force direction, the light pressure can be used to increase the orbital speed of the spacecraft, sending it outward from the Sun, or de crease its orbital speed, allowing it to fall inward. A new type of solar sail, called a solar photon thruster, has a large sail that always faces the Sun for maximum light collection. The collector sail has a slight curvature (кривизна) that focuses the sunlight down onto a much smaller sail, which redirects the sunlight to provide the net thrust vector desired. Besides being more efficient than a standard sail, a solar photon thruster can be launched at Shuttle altitudes. Standard sails can only operate above
Were a solar sail made light enough, it could «hover» without orbiting, the light pressure from the solar photons balancing the gravity attraction of the Sun and/or Earth. Then it would be possi ble to use solar sails first for communication, broadcast, and weather satellites, second for scientific stations hovering over the Sun and the rest of the solar system, and third for transporting cargo to and from Earth, the planets, and asteroid belt — without an expenditure of fuel.
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