What are your retirement plans? Keep working? Get more exercise? Or learn something new? You may put them on hold. There's a chance that, sooner or later, you might have to move further than you were thinking, as far as Mars.
On Thursday, National Geographic will show the firstever Mars show home, giving earthlings (地球人) an idea of what their life could look like on the Red Planet. In the notsodistant year of 2037, the iglooshaped structure could be the home of your future.
It shows a house built using recycled spacecraft parts and Martian soil, called regolith, which has been microwaved into bricks. Some parts of the home are recognizable — a kitchen, a bedroom — but there are fundamental differences that are important to human survival.
As the Martian atmosphere is around one hundredth as thick as the Earth's, people will need permanent (永久的) shelter from the sun; society will move largely indoors. Most buildings will be connected by underground passages and the houses won't have windows. The homes will have simulated solar lighting, or natural light that has been bent several times.
Walls will need to be 10 to 12 feet thick, to protect people from dangerous rays (光线) that can pass through six feet of steel, and a double airlocked entrance to keep the home under proper pressure.
"We don't think of our houses as things that keep us alive, but on Mars your house will be a survival centre，" says Stephen Petranek, author of How We'll Live on Mars. This is not just the stuff of scifi. "10 to 20 years from now there will certainly be people on Mars，" Petranek says.
"We've had the technology for 30 years to land people on Mars, but we haven't had the will," Petranek says. But two main factors have "completely swung public attitudes".
The private companies' participation has forced government agencies to speed up their game, and influential films such as Gravity and The Martian have caught society's eye.
Shooting for the Stars
Tereshkova flew into space on June 16, 1963, on the three-day Vostok 6 mission. After 48 orbits and 71 hours, she returned to Earth, having spent more time in space than all U. S. astronauts combined to that date.
A textile worker from a modest family, Tereshkova became interested in parachuting at a young age. Tereshkova and four other women were part of the first all-female cosmonaut training group in 1961, but only Tereshkova ever completed a flight.
After Tereshkova's landmark mission, it would take another 20 years for the United States to send a woman into space. Since then, a total of 57 women from nine different countries have blasted off.
Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping heads for the launch site shortly before her mission to dock with a space lab on June 11.
NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg was aboard the International Space Station and China sent its second-ever female astronaut, Wang Yaping, to work on its orbiting space module. However, Tereshkova remained the only woman to complete a solo flight.
In recent years, NASA has run into trouble with funding. However, this new class of astronaut candidates suggests that NASA is looking ahead to the future of space exploration. The group includes the first female fighter pilot to become an astronaut in almost two decades, as well as a female helicopter pilot.
A. Since then, many astronauts have conquered the space.
B. Two women have been in orbit in recent years.
C. However, her parents thought it dangerous to do so and tried to stop her.
D. Currently, there are no American spacecraft that can carry humans to space.
E. Sally Ride became the first female American woman to leave Earth on June 18, 1983.
F. It took place just two years after Yuri Gagarin achieved the first piloted spaceflight in 1961.
G. Her experience in parachute jumping led to her being selected as a cosmonaut by the Russian government.
All through history, explorers have led the way for people to move into new places. Today, explorers are responsible (负责的) for is leading the way into space.
The first person in space was Yuri Gagarin from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). He (send) into space on April 12, 1961 aboardVostok 1. The Vostok 1 spaceship reached point some 300 kilometers high before it began to fall back to the earth. His journey only lasted 108 minutes, but that first trip into space marked the beginning of the Space Age.
The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova was also from the USSR. She circled the earth for two days and 22 hours aboard Vostok 6 in 1963. During this journey, it was reported Vostok 6 completely circled the earth 48 times!
Twelve people have (actual) walked on the moon. Neil Armstrong from the United States was the first man (set) foot on the moon. The members of the Apollo 17 space team visited the moon in 1972, and spent almost 3 days on the moon picking rocks and collecting soil from the surface of the moon. They brought these samples (样本) back earth for scientists around the world to study.
So far, only about 300 people from all around the world (go) into space, but the number will surely increase as scientists continue to explore space.
Scholars think of the Baby Boom (婴儿潮) generation as those Americans born between 1946 and 1964. But in my opinion, a Baby Boomer is an American born after the Second World War who remembers the Apollo 11 moon landing. For those of us, Apollo 11 was the biggest thing that had ever happened in our lives. It marked our lives just as the Great Depression and the Second World War had marked our parents' and grandparents' lives. We were the last generation to have been born before humans became a space-faring species; we were the first generation to come of age as members of that space-faring species.
In July, 1969, I was eight years old. My parents, younger sister, and I were spending our first summer in our new house, which we moved into the last April. I was enjoying a typical child's summer filled with lemonade and watermelon, fireworks and hide-and-seek. And there was the moon, which made this typical child's summer become unusual.
I had taken to science early and was interested in the space program in particular. I never missed any launch on TV as well as the related reports in newspaper. In my eyes, rockets, spaceships, spacemen, and others about outer space were all so attractive that I could never resist them. What had been science fiction for my parents was science fact for me. And Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin were my heroes.
I followed every report about Apollo 11from beginning to end. On the morning of July 16, Saturn V rocket, the most powerful machine made by human beings, pushed the three astronauts on their way into history. I watched the news reports of the trip to the moon on TV. Finally, on the afternoon of July 20, 1969 Armstrong and Aldrin landed their lunar spaceship, the Eagle, on the surface of the moon. I can't remember exactly watching much more of the moonwalk; I was young and sleepy, so I went back to bed. I watched Armstrong and Aldrin leave the moon the following day for the journey home, which ended eight of the most extraordinary days in human experience and in the life of one eight-year-old boy.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
Being children, my sister and I went to bed early on that exciting evening……
……
This little blue planet in only the beginning.
