Choose the best answers to complete the following sentences.
Choose the word or phrase among A, B, C or D that best fits the blank space in the following passage.
Neil Armstrong was the first person ___(9)___ on the moon. He was born in Ohio on August 5, 1930. While he was in college, he left to serve in the U.S. Navy. He flew planes during the Korean War. Then he came back to college and finished the degree he ___(10)___. He later ___(11)___ a master's degree too.
Armstrong became an astronaut in 1962. He was the commander of Gemini 8 in 1966. Neil Armstrong ___(12)___ the first successful connection of two vehicles in space.
Armstrong’s second flight was Apollo 11 in 1969, and he was the mission commander. He flew with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon in a lunar module named "Eagle". With more than half a billion people ___(13)___ on television, Armstrong ___(14)___ the ladder and said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." and Aldrin ___(15)___ him shortly. They explored the surface for two and a half hours, collecting samples and taking photographs.
They left behind an American flag, and a plaque reading, "Here men from the planet Earth first ___(16)___ upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in ___(17)___ for all mankind."
After almost a day, they blasted off. They docked with Collins in ___(18)___ around the moon. All three then flew back to the Earth.
Read the passage, and choose the correct answer A, B, C or D for each question.
The Shuttle Era Comes to an End
The set of Space Shuttle missions run by NASA captivated the world and proved that reusable spacecraft could be used to bring astronauts and cargo into space. The Space Shuttle programme had a total of six separate orbiters, five of which actually went into space. The first-made orbiter was only used to gather data about how the shuttles would glide back to the earth. This shuttle would be brought up into the air by a specially modified Boeing 747 and released to glide down without any power of its own.
The Space Shuttle Era ran from the first launch on April 12, 1981, and ended when the final shuttle landed on July 21, 2011. During this time, there were 135 missions flown. Of the five shuttles that did go into space, two met with disasters that killed all the crew members aboard.
The first disaster happened on January 28, 1986 what Space Shuttle Challenger ran into severe problems and exploded less than two minutes after take-off. It was a major blow to NASA as a school teacher was on board the orbiter, and the launch was being watched by children from schools across the United States. The second disaster came on February 1, 2003. After having completed its mission, Space Shuttle Columbia was returning to the earth from space. During damage done to a wing during its launch, the orbiter disintegrated as it hit the earth’s atmosphere during re-entry.
Because the Space Shuttle programme was running, it largely made possible the construction of the International Space Station (ISS). The shuttles brought astronauts to the station, replenished supplies, and carried actual pieces to the Space Station up from the earth.
As the Space Shuttle Era came to an end, many space lovers have been left wondering, “What’s next?” There is still plenty to explore, so we will all just have to wait and see.
Voyager 1: Boldly Going Where None Has Gone
The Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched in 1977 to study the outer planets of our solar system. It sent back some of the iconic photographs of Jupiter and other outer planets that were the best views ever seen and certainly much better than any of the views astronomers were able to get with Earth-based telescopes. However, the mission of the spacecraft turned out to be more than just looking at planets.
In August of 2012, Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to leave our solar system. It has escaped the gas bubble from the sun and is moving in the space between stars. It is in territory that has never been explored.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft is traveling at about 38,000 miles per hour and has a very small amount of computer memory as part of its equipment. As a comparison, an average smartphone has 270,000 times more memory than Voyager 1, and the spacecraft doesn’t have a processor like anything we have today. When Voyager 1 sends messages to the earth, they take about 17 hours to reach us traveling at the speed of light. Voyager 1 is currently more than 18 billion kilometers away from the earth.
There is enough power on Voyager 1 to power the craft and send measurements from its science instruments until 2020. At that point, some instruments will be shut down over the years until 2025. It is possible that information from the craft could still be received as far out as 2036. It is no wonder that Voyager 1 has been hailed as “the little spacecraft that could”.