VOICE ONE:
This is Bob Doughty.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Doug Johnson with the VOA Special English programEXPLORATIONS. Today we tell about some of the important space newsof the past year. We begin with the first permanent human home inspace.
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VOICE ONE:
Last year was the first full year that humans lived in apermanent place in space. On November First, Two-Thousand, anAmerican astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts took their places asthe first crew of the International Space Station. The commander ofthe first crew was American Bill Shepherd. The other members wereRussian Cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev.
The three were launched on aRussian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan.
Now, the fourth crew of the International Space Station is inorbit. They arrived at the International Space Station DecemberSeventh on the American Space Shuttle Endeavour. The crew commanderis Russian Cosmonaut Yury Onufrienko. American Astronauts DanielBursch and Carl Walz are the flight engineers.
VOICE TWO:
During the past year, the four crews of the International SpaceStation have been a mix of American astronauts and Russiancosmonauts. One American woman, Susan Helms, was a member of thesecond crew to live in the space station.
NASA says future crews of the space station will be a mix ofastronauts from the United States, Russia, the European Space Agencyand Japan.
VOICE ONE:
The International Space Station is a cooperative effort bysixteen nations. When it is completed it will provide more room forspace research than any spacecraft ever built.
In the past year, the space station’s ability to perform usefulwork has been greatly expanded. During Two-Thousand-One, six spaceshuttle flights arrived at the International Space Station. TheRussian Soyuz rocket also flew to the space station.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis carried the huge United States sciencelaboratory named “Destiny” that will be used for experiments inspace.
VOICE TWO:
Since the International Space Station was first placed in orbit,seventy-nine people have visited or worked there as crew members.These men and women have built the space station into aone-hundred-fifty ton powerful device.
In the past year, the International Space Station has become anextremely important research center. Experiments are being donethere that could not be repeated on Earth. This is because of theextreme lack of gravity in space. Future research plans includeexperiments in biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and medicine.
VOICE ONE:
The International Space Station is one of the brightest objectsin the night sky. Sunlight shines off huge structures that look likewings. They were added to the space station to gather energy fromthe Sun. They are the largest and heaviest structures to be carriedinto space. The sun shines on these wing-like devices making it veryeasy for people on Earth to see where people are living in space.
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VOICE TWO:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Mars Odysseyspacecraft successfully entered an orbit around the planet Mars inOctober. It left Earth on April Seventh, Two-Thousand-One. It flewfour-hundred-sixty million kilometers to reach Mars. NASA officialssaid it reached its planned orbit with no problems.
In November, the American space agency received the firstpictures of Mars taken by the Odyssey. The pictures were taken fromabout twenty-two thousand kilometers above the South Pole of theplanet. They showed areas of carbon dioxide ice at the southern endof Mars.
VOICE ONE:
Beginning in February, Odyssey will start a two and one-half yearscience project. The Odyssey spacecraft has several important tasks.
Odyssey does not carry instruments that can search for life onMars. Yet, the spacecraft’s instruments can search for informationthat will help researchers understand if the environment of Mars cansupport life now. Or it will help them discover if Mars ever couldhave supported life.
Evidence of water is extremely important for deciding if lifecould exist on Mars. Mars is too cold to permit liquid water toremain on the surface. Yet, researchers say water on Mars may betrapped under the surface. It may be ice, or possibly a liquid.
Instruments on Odyssey will let scientists measure any amount ofpermanent ice and how it changes with the seasons. Odyssey’sinstruments will also let NASA scientists search Mars for chemicalelements. These elements include carbon, silicon, and iron.
Odyssey will seek evidence of radiation on Mars. It will look forpossible areas that may be dangerous to future astronaut crews. Thisinformation will help NASA know how to plan for a visit to Mars byhuman explorers.
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VOICE TWO:
The Hubble Space Telescope continues to be an extremely valuabletool for learning about space. In the past year it continued to sendback to Earth pictures and other information from the far areas ofthe universe.
One of Hubble’s most interesting tasks this year was making thefirst direct examinations and chemical tests of the atmosphere of aplanet outside our solar system. The lead researcher for the projectis David Charbonneau of the California Institute of Technology andthe Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Mister Charbonneau says his team used the Hubble Space Telescopeto find sodium in the planet’s atmosphere. He says the research teamfound much less sodium in the atmosphere than expected. The workdone by Hubble shows that it is possible for the space telescope andother telescopes to measure the chemicals in a planet’s atmosphere.
The planet that the space telescope examined is abouttwo-hundred-twenty times the size of Earth. It orbits a yellowSun-like star called H-D two-zero-nine-four-five-eight. The star isabout one-hundred-fifty light years away in the constellationPegasus. NASA says almost anyone can find the star by using a smalltelescope.
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VOICE ONE:
NASA scientists also heard from an old friend last year. In May,NASA scientists sent and received radio messages from the PioneerTen Spacecraft. Pioneer Ten was launched more than twenty-nine yearsago on March Second, Nineteen-Seventy-Two. It is now more thaneleven-thousand-million kilometers from Earth.
Pioneer Ten was the first spacecraft to pass through a huge areaof space rocks called the asteroid belt. It was also the first totake close pictures of the planet Jupiter. In Nineteen-Eighty-Three,Pioneer Ten became the first human-made object to leave our solarsystem. It did this when it passed beyond the orbit of the planetPluto.
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Larry Lasher is the Pioneer Ten Project Manager for NASA’s AmesResearch Center at Moffett Field, California.
Mister Lasher said NASA engineers decided the only way to get asignal from the spacecraft was to send a message and wait for ananswer. He said Pioneer received the message and answered with avery weak signal.
Radio messages to the spacecraft were sent from a special radiotelescope in Madrid, Spain. Pioneer Ten is so far away that radiosignals traveling at the speed of light still took almosttwenty-four hours to reach the spacecraft and return.
VOICE ONE:
NASA scientists who built Pioneer Ten knew it would pass out ofour solar system and into the far reaches of space. They placedpictures of a man and a woman on the spacecraft. They also placedinformation about Earth and recordings of human voices and thesounds of animals.
Pioneer Ten is traveling toward the star group Taurus, at almostforty-five thousand kilometers an hour. It will pass the neareststar in the constellation in about two-million years.
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VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson andproduced by Cynthia Kirk. Our studio engineer was Dwayne Collins.This is Doug Johnson.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Bob Doughty. Join us again next week for anotherEXPLORATIONS program on the Voice of America.