2015考研英语阅读太空时代的结束_大学英语阅读

2015考研英语阅读太空时代的结束

　　然而没有这些推动太空事业发展的太空学员的满腔热情，太空时代便无法想象。工程师们为了实现遨游太空的梦想全身心地投入到军事机构中，这是唯一的可以获得使用的途径。比如工程师Wernher Braun，他为二战时期的德国V2计划和冷战时期的美国阿波罗计划分别建造了火箭。虽然他们中很多人是为了获得高额的奖金。工程师Wernher Braun在1958年的一本书中写道，第一个到达与地球同步轨道的人并没有得到第一个到达月球的人同样的花环。二十世纪五六十年代，当早期的意在探索冒险的太空火箭升空时，太空遨游的幻想就更热切了。事实上，美国的太空计划署和苏联的太空部门已经忽略了像星际旅行和2001：太空冒险这样的完美的幻想。

　　No longer. It is quite conceivable that 36,000km will prove the limit of human ambition. It isequally conceivable that the fantasy-made-reality of human space flight will return tofantasy. It is likely that the Space Age is over.

　　从此不再幻想。36,000公里成为人类抱负的极限，这件事会相当可信。人类太空飞翔的梦想成为现实，而退回想象也将变得同样可信。换言之，太空时代即将结束。

　　Bye-bye, sci-fi

　　再见，科学幻想

　　Todays space cadets will, no doubt, oppose that claim vigorously. They will, in particular,point to the private ventures of people like Elon Musk in America and Sir Richard Branson inBritain, who hope to make human space flight commercially viable. Indeed, the enterprise ofsuch people might do just that. But the market seems small and vulnerable. One part, spacetourism, is a luxury service that is, in any case, unlikely to go beyond low-Earth orbit at best. The other source of revenue is ferrying astronauts to the benighted InternationalSpace Station , surely the biggest waste of money, at $100 billion and counting, that hasever been built in the name of science.