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VOICE ONE:
This is Phoebe Zimmermann.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Richard Rael with EXPLORATIONS from VOA SpecialEnglish. Today we tell about the planned launch of the new crew ofthe International Space Station on October eighteenth. We also tellabout the birthday of America’s National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration. Our report begins with the last days of the Galileospacecraft.
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The Galileo spacecraft flew intothe atmosphere of the planet Jupiter on September twenty-first. NASAexperts say the extreme pressure of Jupiter’s atmosphere destroyedGalileo, breaking it into small pieces. NASA’s Deep Space Networkcommunication’s station in Goldstone, California received the lastmessage from Galileo at twelve-forty-three in the afternoon, PacificDaylight Time.
Hundreds of former Galileo project team members and theirfamilies were present at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory inPasadena, California. They came to honor and celebrate the Galileospacecraft and to say goodbye.
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NASA officials directed Galileo into Jupiter’s atmosphere becauseits fuel was almost gone. Without fuel, the spacecraft would nothave been able to change direction or to point its communicationsequipment toward Earth. And NASA scientists did not want Galileo tocrash into Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
One of Galileo’s many discoveries was evidence of an ocean underthe surface of Europa. Scientists did not want to take the chancethat Galileo could damage Europa’s environment. Galileo also createdso much scientific interest in Europa that plans have already beenmade to return to this moon.
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Galileo was launched from the cargo area of the Space ShuttleAtlantis in nineteen eighty-nine. It has been one of the mostsuccessful spacecraft ever launched. The discoveries made by Galileobegan even before it reached Jupiter.
For example, in nineteen-ninety-one, Galileo took the first closephotographs of a huge space rock, named Gaspra. Innineteen-ninety-four, Galileo made the only direct observation of acomet hitting a planet. The comet was Shoemaker-Levy. The gravity ofJupiter broke apart the comet and huge pieces exploded intoJupiter’s atmosphere.
The photographs of that event were among more thanfourteen-thousand that Galileo sent back to Earth. The spacecraftprovided thousands of photographs of Jupiter and its moons. Amongthese were photographs of huge storms on Jupiter that carried fiercelightning. They also included photographs of active volcanoes onJupiter’s moon, Io, and the unusual surface of the moon Europa.Galileo sent back huge amounts of scientific information aboutJupiter and its moons.
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The idea for Galileo was first proposed innineteen-seventy-seven. Scientists spent more than twelve yearsplanning and building Galileo. After its launch innineteen-eighty-nine, it took six years to travel to Jupiter.
Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December seventh,nineteen-ninety-five. It made thirty-five orbits around the hugeplanet. Galileo remained in orbit around Jupiter for almost eightyears. Galileo project officials say it traveled more thanfour-thousand-million kilometers.
NASA says the working time for Galileo should have ended sixyears ago. However, NASA extended its life three times. This wasdone because it was still returning very valuable scientificinformation.
The spacecraft kept working even after it suffered four times theamount of radiation that experts thought possible. The only thingthat stopped it was the end of its fuel supply.
Torrance Johnson is a Galileo project scientist. Mister Johnsonsaid that Galileo’s end does not mean that NASA has lost aspacecraft. It means they have progressed a step further into thefuture of space exploration.
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A Russian Soyuz spacecraft isexpected to be launched from Kazakhstan on October eighteenth. Itwill link with the International Space Station on October twentieth.The Soyuz will carry the two men who will be the eighth crew to liveand work on the Space Station.
The crewmembers are Commander and NASA Station Science OfficerMichael Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri. Both men have agreat amount of experience. Astronaut Foale has spentone-hundred-seventy-eight days in space. Cosmonaut Kaleri has spentfour-hundred-eighteen days in space.
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European Space Agency Astronaut Pedro Duque will also fly as partof the team. However, he will return to Earth with the seventh SpaceStation crew. They are Expedition Seven Commander Yuri Malenchenkoand Flight Engineer Ed Lu. They have lived on the InternationalSpace Station since April.
The new crew is to spend almost two-hundred days on theInternational Space Station. Their work will begin after the SeventhExpedition crew has returned to Earth.
Astronaut Foale and Cosmonaut Kaleri will begin science researchand experiments. They will also carry out education activities andEarth observations.
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This month is the forty-fifthbirthday of NASA. On July twenty-ninth, nineteen-fifty-eight,President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law that created the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration. On October first of that year,the new agency began the work of civilian research linked to spaceflight and aeronautics.
Humans have always wanted to travel to the moon and otherplanets. A major step toward that goal was the first successfullaunch of a liquid fuel rocket. It took place on March sixteenth,nineteen-twenty-six. That rocket was launched by Robert Goddard,near the American city of Auburn, Massachusetts. Experts say it wasas important to space flight as the Wright Brothers’ first flightwas to the beginning of aviation.
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Six days after President Eisenhower signed the law creating NASA,the new agency began work on a study that would result in a humanspace flight project.
It was later named Project Mercury. That project continued foralmost five years. NASA successfully launched Alan Shepard intospace on May fifth, nineteen-sixty-one. His flight lasted onlyfifteen seconds. Project Mercury ended with the thirty-four hourflight of Astronaut Gordon Cooper on May fifteenth,nineteen-sixty-three.
Project Mercury was only a beginning. On July twentieth,nineteen-sixty-nine, NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrinbecame the first people to walk on the moon.
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NASA has had many other successes in its forty-five years ofeffort. It has placed advanced communications satellites in spacethat provide immediate television and voice communications aroundthe world. NASA placed in orbit the Hubble Space Telescope which hasextended our knowledge of our solar system and the universe. TheHubble Space Telescope has provided thousands of photographs. Someof these are of objects that are millions of light years away.
Anyone with a computer than can link with the Internet can seethousands of these photographs. Like the Hubble photographs, NASAprovides much of its work to scientists and the public around theworld.
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NASA helped build the International Space Station. The crews onthe station continue to do experiments in medicine, agriculture,space science and many more subjects.
NASA successfully landed exploration vehicles on the planet Mars.Two more of these exploration vehicles are now on their way to thered planet. The Mars exploration vehicles will provide informationthat may make it possible for human exploration in the future.
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NASA is already planning a human space flight to Mars. Scientistsare working on the technical problems that must be solved beforepeople can travel to, and live safely on, Mars. NASA says thetechnical problems in traveling to Mars will be solved in the verynear future.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration says it hasalways worked toward the future. NASA says it will continue in thiseffort.
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VOICE TWO:
This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced byMario Ritter. This is Richard Rael.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Phoebe Zimmermann. Join us again next week forEXPLORATIONS in Special English on the Voice of America.