VOICE ONE:
This is Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English programEXPLORATIONS. Today we tell about the last task of the spacevehicle, Galileo. We tell about the successful flight of NASA’sspace shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station. And wetell about exciting evidence of water ice on the planet Mars.
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VOICE ONE:
NASA has announced the best direct evidence of water ice on theplanet Mars. A NASA spacecraft, the two-thousand-one Mars Odyssey,found the evidence.
William Boynton is a researcher atthe University of Arizona. He is also the top investigator for oneof the scientific instruments carried by the Odyssey Spacecraft. Thegamma ray spectrometer can discover what is below the surface ofMars to a depth as great as one meter.
Mister Boynton is excited about the evidence produced by thegamma ray spectrometer. He says, “We were hopeful that we could findsome evidence of ice, but what we have found is much more ice thanwe ever expected.”
VOICE TWO:
Scientists used Odyssey’s gamma ray spectrometer instrument tofind hydrogen, which is extremely good evidence of the presence ofwater ice. They found the main hydrogen evidence in the top meter ofsoil in a large area surrounding the south pole of Mars. MisterBoynton says it is really an area of ice that is full of dirt. It isdirty ice, not dirt that contains ice.
The amount of hydrogen discovered shows more than fifty percentice between thirty and sixty centimeters below the surface. Thismeans if a container of this soil was heated it might produce morethan half a container of water.
This direct evidence of water ice is extremely important tofuture exploration of Mars. Finding water on Mars means a mannedspacecraft could be launched from Earth without having to carry hugesupplies of water. This would greatly cut the time and cost ofplanning a flight to Mars.
VOICE ONE:
Stephen Saunders is the Odyssey project scientist at NASA’s JetPropulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California. He says scientistshave suspected for a long time that large amounts of water werepresent on Mars. Mister Saunders says the big questions they aretrying to answer are ‘where did all that water go?’…and…’what doesthis water mean for life?’
NASA scientists believe this ice may have once supported life ina time when the climate of Mars was much warmer. Mister Saunderssays there could still be life on Mars. He says that livingorganisms can be found in cold environments on Earth.
Jim Garvin is the Mars program scientist at the NASAheadquarters, in Washington, D-C. He says it is important to measureand map the icy soils in the polar areas of Mars. He says NASA needsto continue searching perhaps deeper underground to find whathappened to the rest of the water scientists think was once on Mars.The surface of Mars has provided good evidence that the planet wasonce covered by large areas of water. Now NASA wants to find it.
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VOICE TWO:
The two American members of the fourth crew of the InternationalSpace Station have set a new record. They returned to Earth on theAmerican space shuttle Endeavour last week. Carl Walz and DanielBursch spent one-hundred-ninety-six days in space. They broke therecord set by American astronaut Shannon Lucid. She spentone-hundred-eighty-eight days in space when she lived on the Russianspace station, Mir, in nineteen-ninety-six.
NASA did not plan for the twoAmericans to break for the record for a single stay in space. Butdelays caused by rain at Cape Kennedy in Florida postponed theplanned launch of the Endeavour. And bad weather again at CapeKennedy forced the landing to be postponed for three days. Endeavorfinally landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California lastWednesday. The space shuttle also returned to Earth Cosmonaut YuryOnufrienko (yoory oh-NEW-free-ehn-kaw) who was the third member ofthe space station crew.
Endeavour carried into space the fifth crew that will live andwork on the International Space Station. The new crew members areRussian cosmonauts Valeri Korzun (vah-LARRY koor-ZOON) and SergeiTreschev (sehr-GAY TRESS-chev), and American astronaut PeggyWhitson.
VOICE ONE:
The Endeavour also carried to the space station more than twotons of supplies and experiments in a device built in Italy. Thedevice is called the Leonardo Multi Purpose Logistics Module. It issimilar to a truck that carries supplies.
The module was carried inside Endeavour until the shuttle reachedthe space station. It was then taken out of the Endeavour’s cargospace and linked to the space station.
The crews of the Endeavour and the space station unloaded theexperiments and supplies from Leonardo into the space station.Leonardo then was filled with completed experiments and equipment nolonger needed on the station. Leonardo returned to Earth inEndeavour.
VOICE TWO:
Endeavour also carried to the space station a new device calledthe Microgravity Science Glovebox. The European Space Agencydesigned and built it.
The Glovebox is an airtight container or box. Space stationcrewmembers can reach inside this closed box by using two rubbergloves that are built into its plastic front.
This lets them to do work with materials inside the box yet havetheir hands and the space station’s environment protected at thesame time. The front of the box is clear plastic so the crewmemberscan see inside.
The Glovebox is a safety device. It lets the crewmembers doscience experiments involving dangerous fluids, chemicals, flames,and gases. The Glovebox is designed to stay in the space station forten years.
VOICE ONE:
The Space Shuttle Endeavour also carried the equipment needed onthe space station to complete the Canadian Mobile Service System.The Mobile Service System uses a huge mechanical arm to move andlift objects from one place to another on the space station.
The Mobile Service System is really a large tool. One of its mainpurposes is to link new parts of the space station when they arrive.The large arm can move to different parts of the space station onsomething similar to a railroad track. Shuttle crewmembers workedoutside the shuttle to complete this track.
VOICE TWO:
Although the American record for longest single stay in space wasbroken, Russian Valery Polyakov is still the all-time record holder.Cosmonaut Polyakov spent four-hundred-thirty-eight days on the Mirspace station in nineteen-ninety-four and ninety-five. AstronautsCarl Walz and Daniel Bursch said they would not want to try to breakthat record. They said they were ready to come home.
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VOICE ONE:
NASA’s Galileo spacecraft has sent back new pictures of Jupiter’smoon, Io. Taking photographs of Io was Galileo’s last task.
Galileo was launched from thespace shuttle Atlantis in nineteen-eight-nine. The spacecraft flewby Venus, Earth and two asteroids on its way to Jupiter. It has beenin orbit around Jupiter since December, nineteen-ninety-five.Scientists planned for Galileo to orbit Jupiter for two years. Butit has survived as a successful scientific instrument now for morethan six years.
Galileo flew more than thirty times near Jupiter’s four largestmoons. It found evidence for liquid saltwater on the moons Europa,Ganymede and Callisto. It found volcanoes on the moon Io.
Galileo found more volcanoes during its last flight near Io. Ithas found evidence of more than one-hundred-twenty volcanoes on Ioand taken pictures of seventy-four of them.
VOICE TWO:
Galileo has returned to Earth about fourteen-thousand photographsof Jupiter and its moons. It will soon pass through an area ofextreme space radiation near Jupiter. It will also fly near the moonAmalthea for the first time in November.
NASA says it has no plans at this time for Galileo to takephotographs of Amalthea. NASA officials say the fuel used to controlthe space vehicle is almost gone. They say Galileo will passAmalthea and circle one last time away from Jupiter. Then it willturn back and fall into Jupiter’s atmosphere. Galileo will bedestroyed by Jupiter’s atmosphere in September, two-thousand-three.
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VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson andproduced by Cynthia Kirk. This is Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week at this time foranother EXPLORATIONS program on the Voice of America.