Vocabulary:

1. to transfer – переносить, перемещать

2. implementation – выполнение, осуществление, реализация

3. to dedicate – посвящать себя чему-либо

4. steppe - степь

5. descent – спуск, снижение

6. in accordance with smth.- согласуясь с (чем-л.) , в соответствии с (чем-л.)

7. agreement - соглашение

8. to permit - разрешать

9. to announce - объявлять

10. to commemorate – упоминать, напоминать

11. to purchase – покупать, приобретать

12. to participate – принимать участие

13. mock-up - экспериментальная модель, макет (в натуральную величину)

14. sophisticated - сложный

15. rigour - строгость, суровость

16. ail - проблема, беспокойство, страдание

I. Answer the following questions:

1. What was the passed XX century marked by?

2. Do we have an opportunity to fly into the real space without being a professional cosmonaut?

3. What did the first space tourist dedicate his flight time to?

4. What was Mr. Shuttleworth (the second tourist) permitted to do in space?

5. If you are able to afford this unusual space travel will you have such a once-in-a-lifetime experience?

II. Find the English equivalents of the following phrases in the text:

• невероятные достижения

• кульминация (апогей) научно-технической революции

• активное изучение космоса

• практическое применение

• обозревать Землю из космоса

• осуществление мечты всей жизни

• в соответствии с соглашением

• объявить о своём твердом желании

• прямая трансляция

• удачно доставить обратно на Землю

• самое невероятное и многообещающее приключение

• технологически сложное оборудование

• выдержать суровые испытания

III. Make up your own sentences with the following phrases:

• осуществление мечты всей жизни

• объявить о своём твёрдом желании

IV. Give the definitions to the following words:

• civilization

• exploration

• agreement

• dream

• specialist

• a human being

V. Read the following statements and discuss them with a partner:

1. The flight of a human being into space is considered to be a culmination of scientific-technical revolution of the last century.

2. Nowadays the space technologies are gradually transferring from the sphere of experimental and scientific research into the field of practical implementation.

3. Specialists of different professions were given a unique chance to fly to space.

Giving your opinion you may find the following expressions helpful:

By the way as for me I’d like to know

I see I’m afraid I wonder

It seems to me that I don’t know exactly If I’m not mistaken Text 5. Achievements of Outer Space

It would be no exaggeration to say that space research is one of the dominant trends in scientific and technological progress of the 20th century. Ever since the launching of the first sputnik this field has developed more rapidly than any other area of science or engineering. While, in the recent past, man had only had as an immediate object of study the comparatively small Earth with its lower atmosphere, it is now a question of the direct exploration of practically the entire solar system.

The orbital observatories have also broadened the range of astronomy observations. We are seeking in outer space the answers to questions about the structure and the evolution of the Universe, the formation of the solar system, and about the origin and the ways of development of life.

Within a relatively short time sputniks, spaceships and automatic interplanetary stations have all supplied unique information that would have taken years of prolonged research using the former remote-sensing techniques. The discovery of such phenomena as the Earth’s radiation belt, the solar wind and outer planet’s magnetosphere have entered the golden treasury of science.

The chemical composition of lunar rock has also been discovered. This was first found using automatic instruments in orbiting lunar sputniks. The data obtained has been refined many times through the analysis of the lunar substance delivered to the Earth.

The study of the Moon and the planets of the Solar Systems has become a specific scientific trend – comparative planetology – giving a fuller understanding of the ”biography” of our own planet and primarily of its early years, about which virtually little is known.

The study of the remote Universe using sputnik astronomy is still fairly young but has nevertheless brought various unexpected and sensational discoveries. Today we can map on the stellar sky approximately 200 new objects whose existence had previously been unknown, the so-called discreet source of X-radiation. The majority of them are compact celestial bodies with a mass exceeding that of our Sun and yet a diameter of less than several dozen kilometers.

Outer space has been working for practical purposes for some time now. Our country, for example, has had a meteorological space service ever since 1967 and no weather forecast is issued which does not include information from the Meteor sputniks. The economic benefits of that service ran into millions of rubles. Thanks to the communication sputniks and the Orbita ground stations more than 80 per cent of the population have television services and the sphere of sputnik application continuous to grow.