Why Explore Space (Extract)

2022-06-01ErnstStuhlinger

英语学习 2022年5期

关键词：音频杂志文章

Ernst Stuhlinger

学习任务

Think about the following questions, and write down your answers before reading the essay.

(1) Have you ever done something without success, but gained something else unexpectedly?

(2) What benefits do you think scientific exploration may have that are not originally intended?

Read the essay, and try to fill in the blank.

The ________ from the space program go far beyond its intended goals.1

Space flight without any doubt is playing exactly this role. The voyage to Mars will certainly not be a direct source of food for the hungry.However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilitiesthat the spin-offsfrom this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation.

2 Besides the need for new technologies, there is a continuing great need for new basic knowledge in the sciences if we wish to improve the conditions of human life on Earth. We need more knowledge in physics and chemistry, in biology and physiology, and very particularly in medicine to cope with all these problems which threaten man’s life: hunger, disease, contaminationof food and water, pollution of the environment.

3 We need more young men and women who choose science as a career and we need better support for those scientists who have the talent and the determination to engage in fruitful research work. Challenging research objectives must be available, and sufficient support for research projects must be provided. Again, the space program with its wonderful opportunities to engage in truly magnificent research studies of moons and planets, of physics and astronomy, of biology and medicine is an almost ideal catalystwhich induces the reaction between the motivation for scientific work, opportunities to observe exciting phenomena of nature,and material support needed to carry out the research effort.

4 Among all the activities which are directed, controlled, and funded by the American government, the space program is certainly the most visible and probably the most debated activity, although it consumes only 1.6 percent of the total national budget, and 3 per mille (less than one-third of 1 percent) of the gross national product. As a stimulant and catalyst for the development of new technologies, and for research in the basic sciences,it is unparalleledby any other activity. In this respect, we may even say that the space program is taking over a function which for three or four thousand years has been the sad prerogativeof wars.

5 How much human suffering can be avoided if nations, instead of competing with their bomb-dropping fleets of airplanes and rockets,compete with their moon-travelling space ships! This competition is full of promise for brilliant victories, but it leaves no room for the bitter fate of the vanquished, which breedsnothing but revenge and new wars.

6 Although our space program seems to lead us away from our Earth and out toward the moon, the sun, the planets, and the stars, I believe that none of these celestialobjects will find as much attention and study by space scientists as our Earth. It will become a better Earth,not only because of all the new technological and scientific knowledge which we will apply to the betterment of life, but also because we are developing a far deeper appreciation of our Earth, of life, and of man.

7 The photograph which I enclose with this letter shows a view of our Earth as seen from Apollo 8 when it orbited the moon at Christmas,1968. Of all the many wonderful results of the space program so far,this picture may be the most important one. It opened our eyes to the fact that our Earth is a beautiful and most precious island in an unlimited void, and that there is no other place for us to live but the thin surface layer of our planet, bordered by the bleak nothingness of space. Never before did so many people recognize how limited our Earth really is, and how perilousit would be to tamper withits ecological balance. Ever since this picture was first published, voices have become louder and louder warning of the grave problems that confront man in our times: pollution, hunger, poverty, urban living,food production, water control, overpopulation. It is certainly not by accident that we begin to see the tremendous tasks waiting for us at a time when the young space age has provided us the first good look at our own planet.

8 Very fortunately though, the space age not only holds out a mirror in which we can see ourselves, it also provides us with the technologies,the challenge, the motivation, and even with the optimism to attack these tasks with confidence. What we learn in our space program,I believe, is fully supporting what Albert Schweitzer had in mind when he said: “I am looking at the future with concern, but with good hope.”