From the earth to the moon《从地球到月球》精讲之一-英语点津

7. Manhattan Project

是美国政府研制第一枚原子弹的计划，时间为从1942到1945年。 In 1939 US scientists urged Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish a program to study the potential military use of fission (核裂变), and $6,000 was appropriated. By 1942 the project was code-named (编号)Manhattan, after the site of Columbia University, where much of the early research was done. Research also was carried out at the University of California and the University of Chicago. In 1943 a laboratory to construct the bomb was established at Los Alamos, N.M., and staffed by scientists headed by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Production also was carried out at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Hanford, Wash. The first bomb was exploded in a test at Alamogordo air base in southern New Mexico. By its end the project had cost some $2 billion and had involved 125,000 people.

8. Somewhere between $10 billion and $20 billion.

这是一句非常好用的口语表达，意思是“100亿到200亿美元之间吧”。当要表示“在……之间”时，我们就可以用Somewhere between 后面加上两个并列的事物，例如：somewhere between 1426 and 1435，1426年到1435年之间。

9. Private Sector

The total economy is composed of two sectors, the private sector and the public sector. 指的是社会经济中的“私营部分”。像航空航天，国家基础设施等这类关系社会公共利益的经济部分在美国一般是国营或者国家控股，而其他的都是私营。

10. Heavy lifting capabilities 指“载重能力”。

11. Old Glory

是美国人对自己国旗的爱称。

12. In the immediate future

意思是“在不久的将来”，和in the near future 差不多，例如：We'll be needing a new car in the near future.

文化面面观

Gagarin & Mercury space program

1. Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin 加加林——人类进入太空第一人

(1934 - 1968), cosmonaut; first human to orbit Earth in a spacecraft.

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin

The son of a carpenter on a collective farm, Yury Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino (克卢希诺镇集体农庄), Smolensk Province (斯摩棱斯克州). During World War II, facing the German invasion, his family evacuated to Gziatsk (格扎茨克now called Gagarin City). Gagarin briefly attended a trade school to learn foundry work, then entered a technical school. He joined the Saratov Flying Club in 1955 and learned to fly the Yak-18. Later that year, he was drafted and sent to the Orenburg Flying School (奥伦堡航空军事学校), where he trained in the MIG jet. Gagarin graduated November 7, 1957, four days after Sputnik 2 was launched. He married Valentina Goryacheva, a nursing student, the day he graduated.

Gagarin flew for two years as a fighter pilot (歼击机飞行员) above the Arctic Circle. In 1958 space officials recruited air force pilots to train as cosmonauts. Gagarin applied and was selected to train in the first group of sixty men. Only twelve men were taken for further training at Zvezdograd (Star City), a training field outside Moscow. The men trained for nine months in space navigation, physiology, and astronomy, and practiced in a mockup of the spacecraft Vostok. Space officials closely observed the trainees, subjecting them to varied physical and mental stress tests. They finally selected Gagarin for the first spaceflight. Capable, strong, and even-tempered, Gagarin represented the ideal Soviet man, a peasant farmer who became a highly trained cosmonaut in a few short years. Sergei Korolev, the chief designer of spacecraft, may have consulted with Nikita Khrushchev, Russia's premier, to make the final selection.

Gagarin was launched in Vostok 1 (“东方”１号) on April 12, 1961, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (拜克努尔发射场) near Tyuratam, Kazakhstan. The Vostok spacecraft included a small spherical module on top of an instrument module containing the engine system, with a three-stage rocket underneath. Gagarin was strapped into an ejection seat. He did not control the spacecraft, due to uncertainty about how spaceflight would affect his physical and mental reactions. He orbited the earth a single time at an altitude of 188 miles, flying for one hour and forty-eight minutes. He then ejected from the spacecraft at an altitude of seven kilometers, parachuting into a field near Saratov. His mission proved that humans could survive in space and return safely to earth.

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin

Gagarin was sent on a world tour to represent the strength of Soviet technology. A member of the Communist Party since 1960, he was appointed a deputy of the Supreme Soviet and named a Hero of the Soviet Union. He became the commander of the cosmonaut corps and began coursework at the Zhukovsky Institute of Aeronautical Engineering. An active young man, Gagarin often felt frustrated in his new life as an essentially ceremonial figure. There were many reports of Gagarin's resulting depression and hard drinking. In 1967, however, he decided to train as a backup cosmonaut in anticipation of a lunar landing.

On March 27, 1968, Gagarin conducted a test flight with a senior flight instructor near Moscow. The plane crashed, killing both men instantly. Gagarin's tragic death shocked the public in the USSR and abroad. A special investigation was conducted amid rumors that Gagarin's drinking caused the crash. Since then, investigators have indicated other possible causes, such as poor organization and faulty equipment at ground level.

Gagarin received a state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin Wall (克里姆林宫墙壁龛). American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin left one of Gagarin's medals on the moon as a tribute. The cosmonaut training center where he had first trained was named after him. A crater on the moon bears his name, as does Gagarin Square in Moscow with its soaring monument, along with a number of monuments and streets in cities throughout Russia. At Baikonur, a reproduction of his training room is traditionally visited by space crews before a launch. Russians celebrate Cosmonaut Day on April 12 every year in honor of Gagarin's historic flight. (Russian history encyclopedia)

影片对白 Man has traversed the reaches of outer space, and that man is a Communist.

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