新概念四Lesson 35.pptVIP

Sojourner, the roving little robot sent aboard the Mars probe Pathfinder火星探测器 arrived sunday July 6, 1997 on the planet Mars Mars Pathfinder探险者 (MESUR Pathfinder), was an American spacecraft that landed a base station with roving probe粗纱探针on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander着陆器 and a lightweight (10.6 kilograms/23 pounds) wheeled robotic rover自动探测器 named Sojourner. It was launched on December 4, 1996 by NASA. Lesson 35 Space odyssey When will it be possible for us to think seriously about colonising Mars? The Moon is likely to become the industrial hub of the Solar System, supplying the rocket fuels for its ships, easily obtainable from the lunar rocks in the form of liquid oxygen. The reason lies in its gravity. Because the Moon has only an eightieth of the Earths mass, it requires 97 per cent less energy to travel the quarter of a million miles from the Moon to Earth-orbit than the 200 mile-journey from Earths surface into orbit! This may sound fantastic, but it is easily calculated. To escape from the Earth in a rocket, one must travel at seven miles per second. The comparable speed from the Moon is only 1.5 miles per second. Because the gravity on the Moons surface is only a sixth of Earths (remember how easily the Apollo astronauts bounded along), it takes much less energy to accelerate to that 1.5 miles per second than it does on Earth. Moon dwellers will be able to fly in space at only three per cent of the cost of similar journeys by their terrestrial cousins. Arthur C. Clark once suggested a revolutionary idea passes through three phases: 1 ‘Its impossible---- dont waste my time.’ 2 ‘Its possible, but not worth doing.’ 3‘I said it was a good idea all along.’ Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, (1917 –2008) was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels (among them: A?Space Odyssey), and a host and commentator解说员 in the British television series Mysterious World. The idea of colonising