Sending astronauts to Mars is a big challenge. Astronauts will have to take everything they need, including food, air and water. The room inside the spaceship is too limited to hold many things. So packing a spaceship is a huge challenge for a trip to Mars.
Six astronauts on an eight-month trip to Mars will need at least 18,000 kilograms of water for drinking and washing. They’ll also need water to protect themselves from space rays which can pass right through spaceship walls and harm astronauts’ living cells. But a layer of water placed around the ship can stop the harm.
That’s a lot of water. And sending water into space is too expensive. It costs $33,000 to send one cup of water to Mars. The more you take, the more it costs. We have the technology to get to Mars, but the problem is that it’s too expensive.
But Flynn, an engineer at NASA, thinks he has a way of solving the problem. Instead of building a heavy spaceship and packing it full of stuff (物料), why not use the stuff as part of the spaceship?
Imagine a spaceship that blows up like a balloon. Inside, the walls have pockets like a big honeycomb (蜂巢). These hold lots of plastic bags filled with water, dried food and algae (水藻). All these make hard walls and great radiation (辐射) protection. And stopping radiation doesn’t influence the food or water itself—it’s safe to eat and drink. And what if the same water could be reused again and again? Flynn and his team call their packed-pocket idea Water Walls.
Making oxygen and taking away CO2—the waste gas you breathe out—is another problem in space. “Water Walls will take away CO2 the same way it’s done here on our Earth—with living plants,” Flynn says. Living plants take in CO2 to make their food, and give off oxygen. “Plants are hard to grow in a spacecraft, so we use algae,” he says.
Algae are tiny plants that live in water. The algae will live in bags in the walls too, fed by human waste and sunlight, eating up CO2 and making oxygen for the astronauts to breathe.
Flynn thinks his onboard recycling system has many advantages. He hopes it will help make flying to Mars a reality very soon.
【小题1】What does the underlined phrase “packing a spaceship” in paragraph 1 most probably mean?| A．repairing things in a spaceship | B．recycling things in a spaceship |
| C．checking things in a spaceship | D．putting things into a spaceship |
| A．Cost is saved. | B．Travelling time is saved. |
| C．Plastic bags are saved. | D．Food is saved. |
| A．To prevent space rays during the space trip. | B．To make the whole spaceship stronger. |
| C．To control the temperature in the spaceship. | D．To produce water in the spaceship. |
| A．To prevent water from being polluted. | B．To serve as food for astronauts. |
| C．To provide oxygen for astronauts. | D．To help other plants grow in a spaceship. |
Many drivers are not very clear about the roads in strange places. Especially, the navigation(导航) just tells the exit number, which makes it easy for drivers to get on the wrong road. However, now you don’t have to worry about these complicated(复杂的) roads anymore. Lane(车道)-level navigation based on the Beidou Satellite System(北斗卫星系统) will be popular in China very soon.
The so-called lane-level navigation uses highly-correct technology to show us the real road situation. Compared with past navigation, it can provide exact road guidance in some complicated parts to help drivers choose the best way.
In January 2023, an online map officially introduced an enhanced version(加强版) of lane-level navigation, which helped make good use of the Beidou Satellite System more deeply. It greatly improved the speed of receiving information and giving answers and the accuracy of lane-level positioning.
In the new version of the online map, lane-level navigation can be used on all kinds of roads. The new version has a different advantage from the old ones: it can guide us clearly where to go in complicated crossings.
In big cities, for drivers who come to these cities for the first time, overhead bridges make it easy to make driving mistakes in strange places. So how does lane-level navigation solve it? After careful study, plan and organization, lane-level navigation uses the Beidou Satellite System to improve positioning accuracy and guide drivers.
For the driverless industry, this map is a good piece of technology, which makes it safer and more widely used.
根据材料内容选择最佳答案。【小题1】What can the lane-level navigation show us?
| A．The exit number. | B．The Beidou Satellite System. |
| C．The real situation in traffic. | D．The highly-correct technology. |
| A．The condition of being true or clear. | B．The level of being fast and safe. |
| C．The level of being simple and easy. | D．The condition of being exact or correct. |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．Because of the heavy traffic. |
| B．Because of many passers-by on the road. |
| C．Because of many overhead bridges. |
| D．Because of the wrong guidance of navigation. |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
Someone has put forward a dream home which is so advanced(先进的）that its kitchen can suggest what to make with certain things. Also, a Microsoft home doesn’t just warn you when you’re out of milk—it can send you a fresh gallon.
But are these innovation(创新）just magic, or are they really coming soon to a neighborhood near you? To find out, US News asked some experts to get their opinions about the home of the near future. Here’s a look at the innovations.
A great number of buildings filled with units look the same. The coming years, however, will give way to a personalized approach(个性化手段）to home construction (住宅建设). The houses will be an instrument of self-expression. “The successful builders will be the ones that figure out how to change their production model enough to make the buyers feel like they are really getting something that is designed for them, not just a model,” says Kermit Baker, the chief economist(首席经济学家）at the American Institute of Architects.
Future home will probably shrink. “We will be building smaller but smarter houses, says Ed McMahon, a senior resident fellow(高级研究员) at the Urban Land Institute. “Instead of having a room for just one use, consumers will demand homes that make better use of space,” says Susanka, whose best-selling book, The Not So Big House, has a great influence in home design. Seldom-used quarters, such as dining and living rooms, will be replaced with space that can serve both functions. “The goal of his ‘right-size, home is to fit its owners like a specially cut suit rather than a jacket you buy in a store,” says Susanka.
【小题1】Why does the writer mention a dream home and a Microsoft home?| A．To tell us something about future houses. |
| B．To tell us that technology develops fast. |
| C．To tell us what kind of house to buy. |
| D．To lead to the topic of the passage. |
| A．be mass-produced (大量生产） |
| B．have a lot of things in common |
| C．express the owners9 personalities (个性) |
| D．be designed by the owners themselves |
| A．become cleaner | B．become smaller |
| C．become brighter | D．become more comfortable |
| A．can warn you when you’re out of milk |
| B．have very advanced furniture |
| C．can make better use of space |
| D．have a room for every use |
| A．Some experts, opinions about future houses. |
| B．The writer’s ideas about future houses. |
| C．What life in the future will be like. |
| D．The development of houses. |
SpaceX made history two months ago by launching the world's most powerful rocket to Mars.
Falcon Heavy,the 230ft rocket, successfully launched from Cape Canaveral-the same station where NASA sent man to the moon almost 50 years ago.
There were no humans on the Falcon Heavy-but it's not without a passenger.Founder of SpaceX. Elon Musk, sent one of his Tesla Car along for the ride with a human shape model called “Starman” sitting on the driver's seat.
For now.the world is very excited by the successful launch of the rocket .Elon musk suggested the space trip could just become the greatest firework show ever seen .If it went wrong.the rocket actually managed to lift off.
Why is there all this excitement?
Watching live streams of an electric car floating in spare, while the extra engines that carried it there softly land themselves back on Earth.it's hard not lo feel that we re living in the future.
Where is all this leading?
Falcon Heavy is a great piece of work ,by the researchers at SpaceX. It's not the most powerful rocket ever made, and NASA's Space Launch System will beat it when it finally launches.But it runs very cheaply,for a rocket; the fact that it can be re-used, at relatively little expense. could launch an exciting future of much more regular space launches.
The set of Mr.Musk's own car in the rocket is a sign of the real reason This launch is such a big deal: it is being done by a man with talent, and the strong wish to make people talk about him and what hes doing.There s no reason for the car to be going to space except for a talking point-indeed, the rocket could carry some important scientific instruments instead-but when viewed as a show for a private space company which hopes to be the future of personal space travel, everything becomes more reasonable .The idea behind that plan is that it makes such space trip much cheaper, since private companies can develop and build the rockets.The companies can then increase the money they may earn with other private satellite launches and other work, cutting down the cost of space travel.
【小题1】What did the rocket carry to space?| A．A car with nothing. | B．A car with a human driver. |
| C．A car with a model. | D．A car with a human passenger. |
| A．They are excited about it. | B．Few of them know about the space trip. |
| C．They don't like the idea of the space trip. | D．They are worried about the high price of the space trip. |
| A．NASA | B．Falcon Heavy. | C．SpaceX company. | D．Mr Musk's own car. |
| A．test his new car. | B．help carry important scientific tools. |
| C．raise the price of the private space trip. | D．let more people know about him and his work. |
| A．science research | B．news report | C．adventure story | D．book review |
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