BBC 6分钟英语学习 宇航员罢工？

English from BBC Learning English. Hello.

This is six minute English from BBC

Learning English. I'm Neil, and I'm Georgina.

Have you finished writing that report yet?

Neil not white. It's almost. Well, finish it this morning, please.

Then make sure you've planned all the

studio sessions for the week and show

me so I can double check.

Ok Okay, has this ever happened to you?

Being micro managed by someone? That's what it's called when your boss wants to control everything down to the smallest detail.

And I notice you've written the report in front Size eleven, when I told you to use size twelve.

If this keeps up, I might go on strike.

It wouldn't be the 1st time someone has refused to continue working because in an argument with their boss, maybe I'd better go easy or neil.

After all, I don't want to repeat of what happened on the American spaceships.

Sky Lab, the subject of this program, in 1973, three US astronauts on board the sky Lab Space Station had a disagreement with mission control over their workload, in an incident that has incorrectly been called the Skylag Space Strike.

But before we find out more, let me ask you my quiz question.

If that's OK, boss, go ahead.

Well, the Skylab astronauts felt they had been given too much work to complete during the space flight.

But how did they protest to their bosses at ground control?

Did they A pretend the radio had broken, B stop shaving and grow beards, or see fake the results of their experiments?

I guess a pretending the radio had broken would show them whose boss, although floating in space without radio contact sounds a bit dangerous to me.

OK, georgina will find out what really happened later.

Now, sky Lab was planned to be the 4th and final crude flight to orbit the Earth.

For scientists, it was the last chance to test out their theories in space.

And the sky Love crew were asked to study everything about space travel, from its effects on the human body to how spiders make webs here's one of the Sky Lab astronauts, ed Gibson telling Lucy Burns, presenter of BBC World Service Program, witness history, how they communicated with ground control.

We got our instructions over our tele printer.

One morning we have about 60 ft.

Of tell a printer message to cut up and divide up and understand before you even get to work.

All space missions run to a tight schedule, all the way down to exercise times and meal breaks.

But the sky Lab for Astronauts felt their ground control team was being particularly bossy.

And I don't know if then you've ever had to do something under the conditions of micro management.

It's bad enough for an hour, but you'll try 24 h a day.

We are just now constructive. That way, we are not getting things done the way we should, because we couldn't use our own judgment.

With so many experiments to carry out in a limited time in space, the sky lab crew had a tight schedule, a small amount of time to finish a job.

Bosses at ground control sent radio messages every morning detailing exactly their duties for that day.

They sound like wheel micromanages. Neil Absolutely.

Or, in other words, bossy, always telling people what to do.

Astronaut Ed Gibson wanted to use his professional judgment to complete the work, not be bossed around by ground control 24 h a day, an expression meaning all day and night.

When one of the astronauts got sick, it was decided that they would take turns talking to ground control.

But one day, all three of them missed the daily radio meeting, and some NASA bosses thought they'd gone on strike.

In the crisis talks that followed, both crew and ground control agreed better ways of working and communicating and less micro management.

But the newspapers had already got hold of the story, and to this day, the incident is misremembered as the strike in Space.

Here's Ed Gibson again, speaking to BBC World Services Witness History on what he learned from the experience.

We all conclude that we all learn something from it.

Michael, management does not work except one year in a situation that demands it like a lift offer every entry.

And fortunately, I think that's been passed down to the the Space Station people, and they learned that that's the way to go.

In the end, NASA agreed that trusting people to do their jobs was the way to go, the best method for doing a particular thing I told you, georgina, no one likes being bossed around, including the sky Lab astronauts.

But was my answer correct about how they protested?

Ah, yes. In my quiz question, I asked how the sky Lab astronauts protested to their bosses.

What did you say? I thought the astronauts A pretended the radio had broken.

Ah, good guess, georgina. But actually the answer was B They stopped shaving and grew beards.

unless that was just another experiment.

Let's recap the vocabulary, starting with micromanage, control everything down to the smallest detail.

If your bossy, you're always telling people what to do.

But be careful, because your workers might go on strike, refuse to work.

The sky Lab

astronauts had a tight schedule, a small

amount of time to complete their jobs.

They felt their bosses were watching them 24 h a day, all the time.

But in the end, trusting people is the way to go.

The best method of doing something.

That's all for now, but watch this space for more trending topics and useful and vocabulary here of BBC Six minute English.

And if you like topical discussions and want to learn how to use the vocabulary found in headlines, why not try out our news of you podcast by.

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