Do astronauts get space sick when they travel from Earth to the International Space Station(ISS)? Yes, astronauts can get space sick travelling to the ISS. It is less likely to travel in the cramped (拥挤的) Russian Soyuz space- craft used to transport astronauts there now than the old space shuttle that was used until 2011. The ability to move in the space shuttle increased the chance of space sickness happening.
As you probably know, gravity is lower inside the ISS. The low gravity in space allows astronauts to float around, but it can help cause space sickness.
Recent experiments show that space sickness is related to our inner ear. Two separate parts of the inner ear respond to sudden changes in direction. If you shake or move your head very quickly, you can get dizzy. However, this passes very quickly. This normal response is upset under low gravity: your inner ear thinks you are constantly moving. It takes some time to adapt to the new condition of weightlessness. It is made worse if you move your head while your body is still adapting. This is why previous astronauts travelling in the larger space shuttle were more likely to suffer from space sickness than the current astronauts travelling in the cramped Soyuz spacecraft. The astronauts were less likely to move their heads around very much in a narrow space.
Space sickness was not talked about in the early space missions (任务). The original Mercury Spacecraft and Gemini Spacecraft were, like the current Soyuz, cramped. The astronauts were less likely to get sick, so space sickness no longer became a concern of NASA.
In 1983 the first detailed study was carried out aboard a space shuttle flight by astronaut-doctor Norm Thagard. His later studies were hampered by the astronauts. None of them wanted to admit to being space sick. They were worried that Mission Control might remove them from space walking opportunities, or even worse, that they might not get included on later space missions.
1. What was the problem with the space shuttle?| A．It was too slow. | B．It was too small. |
| C．It broke down often. | D．It had too much space. |
| A．It fools their inner ear. | B．It causes pain in their heads. |
| C．It stops them shaking their heads. | D．It prevents them measuring their weight. |
| A．The condition had been kept secret to the public. |
| B．There were few detailed studies on it. |
| C．The old spacecraft were better equipped. |
| D．The astronauts were less likely to get sick. |
| A．Changed. | B．Improved. | C．Blocked. | D．Compared. |
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【推荐1】For years, my time spent in the shower could have got me a mention in Guinness World Records as the shortest time taken to bathe. I hurried up during this process.
One day, however, while at a party, I heard an artist friend telling everybody that his idea came while he was having a shower. "What about you? Don't you get your creative thoughts from the same place?", he asked.
"I'm in and out in a hurry", I told, him proudly. I have no time to waste!"
"What a pity! That's the place where you need to slow down; plenty of great thoughts come from there!" he said. I tried it out. I slowed down the whole process, started enjoying the warm water, taking a little longer to soap myself and even spending more time just enjoying the process, and realized how much I had missed in hurrying up all these years.
A woman told me how much stress her friend was suffering from and how she tried to convince her that she needed to find ways to relax. She gave her a videotape on stress management and relaxation techniques, and encouraged her to watch it right away. Fifteen minutes later, her friend returned the tape and said: "It was good but I don't need it".
"But it's a 70-minute video. You couldn't have watched the whole thing," the woman replied. "As a matter of fact, her friend put it in, fast-forward!"
A major social problem of the 21st century is Hurry Sickness. We hurry through work. We swallow fast food. We complain that we don't have enough time. We race through the days and weeks until one day we look back in amazement and comment: My god, how time flies! Then we realize the heavy price we have paid for traveling fast.
Symptoms of Hurry Sickness include stress and anxiety, bad relationships, lowered work performance and even disease. Some people don't survive it. What's the cure? Slow down, for life is so short and precious that we must live it well.
1. What was the advantage of taking a shower in the eyes of the artist friend?| A．Time was saved. | B．Nothing was missed. |
| C．Great ideas flew away. | D．Creative thoughts came. |
| A．She felt stressed. | B．She found the tape useless. |
| C．She found no way to relax. | D．She watched the tape too fast. |
| A．People run fast to work. | B．Everything is done in a hurry. |
| C．People don't have enough time. | D．Time flies without being noticed. |
| A．Slow down and enjoy life more. | B．Learn to survive without stress. |
| C．Develop a good friendship. | D．Hurry up and perform good work. |
【推荐2】The regular world, which is presented to us by our five senses—you could call it reality(现实) 1.0, is not always the most user-friendly place. We get lost in unfamiliar cities; we meet people whose language we don’t understand. So why not try the improved version(版本): augmented reality (AR：增强现实) or reality 2.0? AR technology adds computer-produced images on the real world by using a mobile phone camera or special video glasses.
Early forms of AR are already here. With the right downloads, smart phones can deliver information about nearby ATMs and restaurants and other points of interest. But that’s just the beginning. A few years from now, the amount of information available will have increased hugely. You will not only see that there’s a Chinese restaurant on the next block, but you will be able to see the menu and read reviews of it.
This is where the next revolution(革命) in computing will take place: in the interface (界面) between the real world and the information brought to us via the Internet. Imagine bubbles(气泡) moving slowly before your eyes, filled with cool information about everything that you see in front of you.
Let’s jump ahead to ten years from now. A person trying to fix their car won’t be reading a book with pictures; they will be wearing a device(设备) that shows 3D computer pictures onto the equipment under repair, labelling parts and giving step-to-step guidance.
The window on the AR world can be a smart phone or special video glasses. But in ten years’ time these will have been replaced by contact lenses (隐形眼镜) with tiny LEDs, which present something at a readable distance in front of the eye. So a deaf person wearing these lenses will be able to see what people are saying.
The question is, while we are absorbed in our new augmented reality worlds, how will we be communicating with each other?
1. What is the topic of the text?| A．The next information technology revolution. |
| B．Early forms of augmented reality technology. |
| C．The differences between reality 1.0 and reality 2.0. |
| D．The relationship between people living in reality 2.0. |
| A．The menu. | B．The block. |
| C．The revolution. | D．The restaurant. |
| A．Protect people’s eyes. | B．Show text and images. |
| C．Warn users of dangers. | D．Replace video glasses. |
| A．are surprised at | B．are addicted into |
| C．are capable of | D．are qualified for |
【推荐3】Passenger pigeons (旅鸽) were the most common birds in all of North America in the 1800s. It was common to see large groups of passenger pigeons — groups that made a sound like a storm. But today, they are extinct because of human behavior. Now, some scientists want to bring passenger pigeons back to life by using new technology and scientific ideas. They call this process deextinction.
Deextinction has not happened yet. It is still just an idea. The process of deextinction is not easy. First, scientists must collect DNA from the bodies of extinct animals. Then they will put it in the eggs of similar animal species. When these animals become adults, they will have babies. And these baby animals will have the DNA of the extinct animals.
Scientists believe it is possible to bring back passenger pigeons and many other animals. However, not everyone thinks this is a good idea.
Stuart Primm is the world's leading expert on modern animal extinction. He believes that bringing extinct animals back to life is bad for the earth. On one hand, these animals no longer have a safe place to live. On the other hand, they could cause other animals to die.
Many other scientists do not agree with Stuart Primm. Stuart Brand, a writer and scientist, is one of them. He believes deextinction is good for many reasons.
"The current generation (当代) of children will experience the return of some unusual animals in their lifetime. It may be part of what defines their generation and their attitude to the natural world. They will take their parents to zoos to see the growing populations of passenger pigeons, and maybe even dodo birds. This will provide a good deal of money for zoos busy with extinct species restoration (恢复). Humans killed off a lot of species over the last 10,000 years. So, it's right to bring some back to life," he said.
1. In the 19th century, passenger pigeons ________.| A．were common sightings |
| B．suffered a lot from storms |
| C．lived mainly in North America |
| D．were the largest in American history |
| A．It will change the DNA of the extinct animals. |
| B．It was first used in passenger pigeons. |
| C．It is difficult to carry out. |
| D．It proved to be useful. |
| A．They will die very soon. | B．They will create other problems. |
| C．They will do great harm to humans. | D．They will replace the similar species. |
| A．Wrong. | B．Difficult. | C．Important. | D．Wasteful. |
【推荐1】The future of space exploration may depend on an art form from the past: origami (折纸艺术), the ancient art of paper folding.
Researchers from Washington State University (WSU), US have used origami to possibly solve the problem of storing and moving fuel to rocket engines, a key challenge in space travel, according to Newswise. They’ve developed a foldable plastic fuel “bladder (囊状物) “resistant to super cold temperatures, which could be used to store and pump fuel in spacecrafts of the future. Their findings have recently been published in the journal Cryogenics.
“Folks have been trying to make bags for rocket fuel for a long time,” said Jake Leachman, one of the lead researchers. “We currently don’t do large-scale and long-duration trips because we can’t store fuel long enough in space.”
Meanwhile, NASA is also looking to paper folding to help observe distant planets. The agency is currently developing Starshade, a foldable, sunflower-shaped piece of hardware that would help block starlight and enable telescopes to view distant objects more clearly in space.
“A huge part of my job is looking at something on paper and asking, ‘Can we fly this?’” Manan Arya, a technologist in California, said. “Once I realized this is how you fold spacecraft structures, I became interested in origami. I realized I was good at it and enjoyed it. Now, I fold constantly.”
Using origami for space purposes isn’t new, however. Solar arrays (太阳能阵列), experimental wings for space shuttle programs and an inflatable satellite were also inspired by origami in both past and present space projects.
“With most origami, the magic comes from the folding,” Robert Salazar, who helped design the Starshade and now works on the Transformers project, said in a statement. “There are so many patterns to still be explored.”
1. What is one of the features of the “bladder”?| A．It can help store solar energy. |
| B．It is made of a few kinds of metal. |
| C．It can resist extreme cold temperatures. |
| D．It can adjust temperatures in a spaceship. |
| A．On account of energy problems. |
| B．Owing to lack of oxygen in space. |
| C．Due to great changes of temperatures. |
| D．Because of the driving force of rockets. |
| A．They need to be improved. |
| B．Origami was the inspiration for them, too. |
| C．There is much more to be explored in space. |
| D．They belonged to quite advanced technology then. |
| A．Key challenge in space exploration |
| B．Past and present space projects |
| C．Folding for space exploration |
| D．Ancient art of paper folding |
【推荐2】Scientists believed that if they could hit an asteroid(小行星)with an object travelling very fast, they could push the asteroid off the path it was on. So NASA came up with an experiment called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART.
Engineers built a box-shaped spacecraft that was about the size of a small car and weighed 570 kilograms and equipped it with a special camera and computers that would allow it to find and follow the asteroid they had chosen for the experiment.
Asteroids are rocky objects that move around the Sun. The smallest are the size of a large stone while some are up to 1, 000 kilometers in diameter (直径). The asteroid that was the target for this test is called Dimorphos, about 160 meters in diameter, or the size of a football stadium. It orbits (环绕) another larger asteroid, called Didymos. They are more than 7 million kilometers away from Earth and go around the Sun together, once every two years.
The DART spacecraft was sent up in November 2021 and then orbited the Sun for 10 months, following the path of Didymos and Dimorphos. Most of that time, Dimorphos was hidden by the sunlight reflecting off of the larger asteroid. On September 26, 2022, the spacecraft’s camera noticed Dimorphos for the first time and its navigation(导航)system began to guide it through space towards its target. About an hour later, it crashed into Dimorphos at more than 22, 500kilometers per hour.
Scientists studied the data and images of the asteroids for the next two weeks and found that the orbit of Dimorphos has shortened from 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes:a 32-minute change. While this may seem like a very small change, it shows that—if a dangerous asteroid was heading toward us—it would be possible to knock it off its course, keeping Earth safe. The chances of Earth actually being hit by an asteroid large enough to cause damage are very small.
1. What is the purpose of the DART?| A．To test whether scientists’ idea is true or not. |
| B．To know the weight of the asteroids going around the Sun. |
| C．To learn about the number of asteroids getting close to Earth. |
| D．To understand how asteroids move through space. |
| A．It is as large as a stadium. | B．It is 1, 000 kilometers wide. |
| C．It is a box-shaped asteroid. | D．It is an asteroid called Didymos. |
| A．It hid the reflected sunlight. | B．It followed the path of the target asteroid. |
| C．It landed safely on the target asteroid. | D．It flew through space to the target asteroid. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Unsatisfying. | C．Unexpected. | D．Useful. |
【推荐3】The Moon is attracting much attention these days as NASA is ready for its Artemis I launch and preparing for more to follow. The mission objectives are clear: develop a sustainable presence on its surface and pave the way to go to Mars.
And then what? What’s the next great leap in humans’ quest for the secrets of the universe? When it comes to the near future scientific exploration, there are a few areas of the solar system that will be receiving some special attention.
First off, there’s Venus, a planet which was a relative paradise with oceans and a pleasant atmosphere. Something went terribly wrong there a few billion years ago, and NASA has scheduled a series of missions to explore what exactly is going on there.
At the other end are the gas giants. Several of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn are covered in thick sheets of ice, and underneath that ice sit oceans of liquid water. NASA has missions planned to investigate those mysterious worlds, hunting for any signs of possible life hidden deep within.
As for us humans, Mars is certainly the grand prize in the coming decades. If we have the adequate drive and funds, we can establish a semi-permanent presence on the red planet, keeping crews working and studying in person on the Martian surface. The other planets of our solar system are not so suitable for people to settle on. Mercury is too close to the Sun for comfort and too far away from the Earth.
Over the coming decades, humans expect to see a rise of “space hotels”, set up for visiting tourists and scientific explorations. Naturally, turning the space rock into a habitat for humans is not very practical considering our current level of technological maturity, but in my best estimation, it’s the next easiest thing to accomplish after the Moon and Mars, of course.
1. What does the underlined word “quest” probably mean in the second paragraph?| A．Request. | B．Explanation. |
| C．Question. | D．Search. |
| A．Mars. | B．Venus. |
| C．Mercury. | D．Gas giants. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Hopeful. |
| C．Critical. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．The launch of Artemis I. |
| B．The secrets of the solar system. |
| C．The missions of NASA. |
| D．The areas of the future universe exploration. |
