BBC 6分钟英语学习 你能成为宇航员吗？

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BBC, learning English. Hello, and welcome to Six Minute English.

I'm Alice, and I'm Rob. So, rob, what job did you want to do when you were little?

Oh, I really wanted to be an astronaut.

Be an orbit, watching the Earth from afar.

Wow. Be in orbit. It means be

in space and following the earth's curvature.

Well, the view must be nice from up there, but the reality of becoming an astronaut is pretty hard.

And it's the subject of today's show.

Did you know that less than 600 people have been into space so far?

I'd like to have been one of them.

I know I have what it takes to be a spaceman.

Yes, there are many others like you who would like to go for this job, rob And that's the quiz question for you today.

How many people have applied to join nasa's 2017 astronaut class?

Was it A 800? B 8000 or C?

18000 people? Hmm. 8000. Sounds like a lot already, so I'll go for B 8000 people.

Hmm. Well, we'll find out if you chose the right answer later on in the program.

So what do you think is the biggest challenge when considering becoming an astronaut?

Well, I'd say claustrophobia, and that means fear of being in a small space.

That might be a problem, because the space capsules are small, and you're with the same people for months at a time.

Yes, that's right. Well, astronauts are bound to get on each other's nerves.

Sometimes to get on someone's nerves means to annoy them.

But I'm a great team player, so I think I'll be okay.

Yes, I can confirm that anyway, the challenge of being an astronaut doesn't stop here in the space capsule.

Astronauts have to put up with extremely difficult conditions like zero gravity, E.G.

yeah, it looks like fun, doing some assaults in the capsule and catching bits of food in your mouth as it floats out of its packet.

But zero gravity, a condition where gravity is exerting no force, can lead to wasting of the bones and muscles.

Astronauts take two and a half hours of exercise per day to help prevent this.

But what do astronauts have to do before they go into space?

To prepare themselves for weightlessness and space walking?

They can practice using a virtual reality headset and special gloves.

It's like playing a computer game that looks and feels like doing a spacewalk.

And they also train in a swimming pool.

Let's listen to major Tim Peak, british astronaut, talking about the preparation he did for his mission on the International Space Station.

The way we practice space walking is in water.

Water gives us the neutral buoyancy that we need.

So we sink training modules into swimming pools and then practice the space walking on them.

We wear very specific equipment, a pressurized spacesuit.

Very difficult to move in. Actually, it's hard to bend the fingers.

It's hard to bend your arms, and it really gives you quite a difficult workout.

British astronaut Tim Peak says water gives us buoyancy, which is the ability to float.

Floating in space is similar to floating in water.

So astronauts practice their spacewalk in swimming pools.

Yes, they take to the water and to the air too.

Astronauts experience the feeling of weightlessness in plains.

A large plane with padded walls flies to high altitude and then goes into a nose dive, or a fast and sudden fall, which creates short periods of weightlessness.

Fabulous. I love to do that, but it's not all fun in games.

Don't forget that one of the main reasons for being out on the International space Station is to conduct research.

Major Tim Peak is doing scientific experiments such as how to grow plants in space, and what affect radiation and zero gravity have on this process.

Like that film where an astronaut gets stranded or left behind on Mars and has to grow potatoes.

The films called The Martian. That's right, yes.

So do you think you have what it takes to survive in a challenging environment?

Rob let's listen to major Tim Peak talking about his survival training.

Survival training. And for this, the European Space Agency sends to Sardinia.

When you land in the soil is capsule.

Sometimes you might not land exactly where you expect to be, foraging for food, e.g.

in your basic elements of shelter and protection, getting water.

Go and live in a cave for seven days with an international crew.

And it's a wonderful environment to prepare you for a mission, because you are very isolated, so astronauts may get stranded on Earth when the space capture lands somewhere unexpected, and they have to find food.

Forage means to search. It's a word we often use to describe how animals search for food.

Indeed. Well, let's go back to that quiz question you ask me earlier.

Alice, I'm keen to know how many people want to live this experience of being an astronaut?

OK, well, I asked how many people have applied to join NASAS 2017 Astronaut class?

Was it A 800? B 8000

or C 18000 people? Am I say quite a lot at B 8000 people?

Hmm. And you were wrong, I'm afraid.

According to nasa's website, more than 18300 people applied to join their 2017 astronaut class.

This is almost three times the number of applications received in 2012 for the most recent astronaut class.

Wow. So there's no chance of me ever succeeding.

Oh well, you mustn't give up.

Rob Anyway, we are running out of time.

So here are the words we heard today in orbit.

Claustrophobia. Get on someone s nerves, zero gravity.

Buoyancy, nose Dive stranded forage. Well, that's the end of today.

S Six minute English Please join us again.

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