2015考研英语阅读迷你漫游车如何登陆火星_大学英语阅读

2015考研英语阅读迷你漫游车如何登陆火星

　　That, at least, is the theory. But the skycrane has never been used before, and there is plentyelse that could go wrong. Indeed, Mars has something of a reputation for destroyingspacecraft. Around half the missions sent there since the first Soviet attempts in 1960 havefailed to arrive. A conversation on the subject in 1964, between a journalist and JohnCasani, a NASA scientist, spawned the idea of a Great Galactic Ghoul, a malevolent creaturethat prowls the space-lanes between Earth and Mars, dining on unfortunate spacecraft.

　　但这毕竟是从理论角度而言的。空中起重机从未使用过，在实际中还可能出现诸多其它差错。事实上，火星也充当了不少航天器破坏者的角色。自1960年前苏联第一次向火星发射航天器以来，有半数左右的火星探测任务遭遇失败而无法到达火星。1964年，一名记者与美国宇航局科学家约翰卡斯尼对此问题曾有过探讨，他们构想出一种邪恶的生物银河系食尸鬼，它穿梭于地球与火星之间，运气不佳的航天器就会变成它的口中之食。

　　The ghoul s latest victim appears to have been Phobos-Grunt, an ambitious Russian missionthat was intended to return to Earth with a rock sample from Phobos, the larger of Mars smoons. The Russian space agency s engineers lost contact with it soon after its launch onNovember 8th. Limited contact had been re-established as The Economist went to press,but it is not clear whether the mission can be salvaged. NASA s engineers, rationalists thoughthey be, will be keeping their fingers crossed on Saturday, and hoping that the ghoul sappetite has thus been sated, and that it will leave Curiosity alone.