(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
On a cold October day in nineteen fifty-seven, the Soviet Union launched a small satellite into orbit around the Earth. Radio Moscow made the announcement. RUSSIAN: "The first artificial Earth satellite in the world has now been created. This first satellite was today successfully launched in the USSR."The world's first satellite was called Sputnik One. Sputnik was an important propaganda victory for the Soviets in its Cold War with the United States. Many people believed the nation that controlled the skies could win any war. And the Soviet Union had reached outer space first. The technology that launched Sputnik probably began in the late nineteenth century. A Russian teacher of that time, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, decided that a rocket engine could provide power for a space vehicle.
In the early nineteen hundreds, another teacher -- American Robert Goddard -- tested the idea. He experimented with small rockets to see how high and how far they could travel. In nineteen twenty-three, a Romanian student in Germany, Hermann Oberth, showed how a spaceship might be built and launched to other planets. Rocket technology improved during World War Two. It was used to produce bombs. Thousands of people in Britain and Belgium died as a result of V-two rocket attacks. The V-two rockets were launched from Germany. After the war, it became clear that the United States and the Soviet Union -- allies in wartime -- would become enemies in peacetime. So, both countries employed German scientists to help them win the race to space. The Soviets took the first step by creating Sputnik. This satellite was about the size of a basketball. It got its power from a rocket. It orbited Earth for three months.
Within weeks, the Soviets launched another satellite into Earth orbit, Sputnik Two. It was much bigger and heavier than Sputnik one. It also carried a passenger: a dog named Laika. Laika orbited Earth for seven days. The United States joined the space race about three months later. It launched a satellite from Cape Canaveral, in the southeastern state of Florida. This satellite was called Explorer One. It weighed about fourteen kilograms. Explorer One went into a higher orbit than either Sputnik. And its instruments made an important discovery. They found an area of radiation about nine hundred-sixty kilometers above Earth. The next major space victory belonged to the Soviets. They sent the first man into space. In April, nineteen sixty-one, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched in the vehicle known as Vostok. He remained in space for less than two hours. He landed safely by parachute near a village in Russia. Less than a month later, the United States sent its first astronaut into space. He was Alan Shepard.
Shepard remained in space only about fifteen minutes. He did not go into Earth orbit. That flight came in February, nineteen sixty-two, with John Glenn. By nineteen sixty-five, the United States and the Soviet Union were experimenting to see if humans could survive outside a spacecraft. In March, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first person to do so. A special rope connected him to the spacecraft. It provided him with oxygen to breathe. And it permitted him to float freely at the other end. After about ten minutes, Leonov had to return to the spacecraft. He said he regretted the decision. He was having such a good time! A little more than two months later, an American would walk outside his spacecraft. Astronaut Edward White had a kind of rocket gun. This gave him some control of his movements in space. Like Leonov, White was sorry when he had to return to his spacecraft. Later that year, nineteen sixty-five, the United States tried to have one spacecraft get very close to another spacecraft while in orbit.
This was the first step in getting spacecraft to link, or dock, together. Docking would be necessary to land men on the moon. The plan called for a Gemini spacecraft carrying two astronauts to get close to an unmanned satellite. The attempt failed. The target satellite exploded as it separated from its main rocket. America's space agency decided to move forward. It would launch the next in its Gemini series. Then someone had an idea: why not launch both Geminis. The second one could chase the first one, instead of a satellite. Again, things did not go as planned. It took two tries to launch the second Gemini. By that time, the first one had been in orbit about eleven days. Time was running out. The astronauts on the second Gemini moved their spacecraft into higher orbits. They got closer and closer to the Gemini ahead of them. They needed to get within six hundred meters to be considered successful.
After all the problems on the ground, the events in space went smoothly. The two spacecraft got within one-third of a meter of each other. The astronauts had made the operation seem easy.In January, nineteen fifty-nine, the Soviets launched a series of unmanned Luna rockets. The third of these flights took pictures of the far side of the moon. This was the side no one on Earth had ever seen. The United States planned to explore the moon with its unmanned Ranger spacecraft. There were a number of failures before Ranger Seven took pictures of the moon. These pictures were made from a distance. The world did not get pictures from the surface of the moon until the Soviet Luna nine landed there in February, nineteen sixty-six. For the next few years, both the United States and Soviet Union continued their exploration of the moon. Yet the question remained: which one would be the first to put a man there. In December, nineteen sixty-eight, the United States launched Apollo eight with three astronauts. The flight proved that a spacecraft could orbit the moon and return to Earth safely. The Apollo nine spacecraft had two vehicles. One was the command module. It could orbit the moon, but could not land on it.
The other was the lunar module. On a flight to the moon, it would separate from the command module and land on the moon's surface. Apollo ten astronauts unlinked the lunar module and flew it close to the moon's surface. After those flights, everything was ready. On July sixteenth, nineteen sixty-nine, three American astronauts lifted off in Apollo eleven. On the twentieth, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin entered the lunar module, called the Eagle. Michael Collins remained in the command module, the Columbia. The two vehicles separated. It was a dangerous time. The Eagle could crash. Or it could fall over after it landed. That meant the astronauts would die on the moon. Millions of people watched on television or listened on the radio. They waited for Armstrong's message: "The Eagle has landed." Then they waited again.
It took the astronauts more than three hours to complete the preparations needed to leave the lunar module. Finally, the door opened. Neil Armstrong climbed down first. He put one foot on the moon. Then, the other foot. And then came his words, from so far away: NEIL ARMSTRONG: "That's one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind."Armstrong walked around. Soon, Aldrin joined him. The two men placed an American flag on the surface of the moon. They also collected moon rocks and soil. When it was time to leave, they returned to the Eagle and guided it safely away. They reunited with the Columbia and headed for home. The United States had won the race to the moon.
重点解析
1.headed for 前往;出发;取向于
He turned round and headed for the workshop.
他扭转身子, 向车间走去 。
2. spacecraft 宇宙飞船,航天器
The space agency would no longer operate its own spacecraft, but essentially buy tickets for its astronauts.
这间航太机构将不再运行自己的航天器,而本质上是为它的宇航员们买票 。
3. rocket engine 火箭发动机;火箭引擎
The company claims it has used experience gained in fields such as rocket engine manufacturing, nanotechnology and particle physics to have created the new blade.
该公司声称其使用了火箭引擎生产、纳米技术与粒子物理学等领域的经验技术,使这款新的刀片得以问世 。
4. astronauts 宇航员
The two space vehicles docked in space and exchanged astronauts.
两个宇宙飞行器在外层空间对接并交换宇航员 。
5. lunar module 登月舱
Intrepid Crater was named after the lunar module Intrepid that carried Apollo 12 astronauts to Earth's Moon 41 years ago last month.
“勇气”坑得名于在 41 年前的上个月搭载了阿波罗 12 号宇航员登上月球的“勇气”号登月舱 。
参考译文
在1957年10月的一个寒冷的日子里,苏联将一颗小型卫星发射至环绕地球的轨道上
。莫斯科电台宣布了这一消息 。“世界上第一颗人造地球卫星已经诞生,今天,苏联成功发射第一颗卫星 。”该卫星被称为“人造卫星一号” 。美苏冷战中,人造卫星是苏联重要的宣传胜利 。许多人相信把控天空的国家将战无不胜,苏联最先到达外太空 。发射人造卫星技术可能始于19世纪末 。当时,俄罗斯一位老师——康斯坦丁•齐奥尔科夫斯基认为,火箭发动机可以为太空飞行器提供动力 。20世纪早期,美国另一位老师——罗伯特•戈达德——测试了这个想法 。他用小型火箭做实验,看它们飞的高度和距离 。1923年,德国的一名罗马尼亚学生——赫尔曼•奥布斯,展示了如何制造宇宙飞船并发射到其他星球 。第二次世界大战期间,火箭技术得到了改进,人们利用此技术制造炸弹 。在英国和比利时,成千上万的人死于V-2火箭袭击,V-2火箭由德国发射 。战后,显然美国和苏联——战时的盟友——在和平时期会成为敌人
1965年,美国和苏联正在试验人类是否能在宇宙飞船之外生存
。3月,俄罗斯宇航员阿列克谢•列昂诺夫成为试验的第一人 。一根特殊的绳子将他和宇宙飞船连接一起 。为他供氧 。它允许他在另一端自由漂浮 。大约十分钟后,列昂诺夫不得不返回飞船 。他说他后悔返回,他玩得很开心!两个多月后,一名美国人走出飞船 。宇航员爱德华•怀特持有一种火箭枪 。这使他能够在太空中控制移动 。和列昂诺夫一样,当怀特不得不返回飞船时,他也同样感到遗憾 。1965年晚些时候,美国试图让一个航天器在轨道上接近另一个航天器 。这是让宇宙飞船对接的第一步,对接是人类登月的必要条件 。该计划需要一艘搭载两名宇航员的双子座宇宙飞船靠近一颗无人卫星 。尝试失败了 。目标卫星在脱离主火箭时爆炸,美国航天局决定继续试验 。它将推出下一个双子座系列 。然后有人提出:为什么不启动两个双子座 。第二颗可以追第一颗,而不是卫星 。事情又一次未按计划进行直至1966年2月苏联月球九号登陆,世界才获得月球表面的照片 。在接下来的几年里,美国和苏联继续探索月球 。然而问题仍然存在:哪个国家会第一个把人送入太空 。1968年12月,美国发射了“阿波罗8号”,搭载三名宇航员
。此次飞行证明了宇宙飞船可以绕月飞行并安全着陆 。“阿波罗九号”宇宙飞船有两个飞行器 。一个是命令模块,它可以绕月球运行,但不能着陆 。另一个是登月舱,在飞往月球的途中,它将与指令舱分离,并在月球表面着陆 。“阿波罗10号”的宇航员解开了与登月舱的连接,并飞得离月球表面很近 。飞行之后,一切都准备就绪 。1969年7月16日,三名美国宇航员乘坐“阿波罗11号”升空 。20日,尼尔•阿姆斯特朗和埃德温•奥尔德林进入登月舱——“鹰” 。迈克尔•柯林斯留在指挥舱——“哥伦比亚号” 。两个飞行器分离的时候很危险,鹰可能坠毁,或者会在着陆后掉下来 。这意味着宇航员将死在月球上 。数以百万计的人通过看电视或收听收音机了解情况 。他们等待着阿姆斯特朗的消息:“鹰着陆了 。”然后再次等待 。宇航员花了三个多小时完成了离开登月舱的准备工作
译文为可可英语翻译,未经授权请勿转载!