Task 2. In pairs write some questions. What would you like to know about living in space?

Task 3.Read the first sentence of each paragraph quickly. Which paragraph do you think will answer your questions? Which questions won't be answered?

Task 4.Read the article.

LIFE IN SPACE

We haven't conquered space. Not yet. We have sent some 20 men on camping trips to the Moon, and the USA and the Soviet Union have sent people to spend restricted lives orbiting the Earth. During the next few weeks, for instance, the US Space Shuttle will take Spacelab into orbit, showing that ordinary (non-astronaut) scientists can live and work in space - for a few days only.

All these are marvellous technical and human achievements, but none of them involves living independently in space. The Russians need food and even oxygen sent up from Earth. And they haven't gone far into space. The residents of Sheffield are farther from London than those of the Shuttle or the Soviet's Salyut. It is only in fiction, and in space movies, that people spend long periods living more or less normally deep in space.

But in a couple of decades this could have changed. There could be settlements in space that would house adventurers leading more or less normal lives. It seems like science fiction - but it is not. It is based on plans produced by hard-headed people: engineers and scientists, headed by Qerard O’Neill of Princeton University, summoned to a conference by NASA. They are space enthusiasts, of course, but they are not dreamers.

The settlement is a gigantic wheel, a tube more than 400ft in diameter bent into a ring just over a mile across. The wheel spins gently once a minute, it is this gentle rotation that makes this settlement different from the Shuttle and Salyut, and infinitely different from the Lunar modules that took man for the first time to any non-terrestrial soil, because the spin produces a force that feels like gravity. Every space trip has shown that the human body needs gravity if it isn't to deteriorate, and gravity also makes normal activities possible. Nobody would want to live for long in a space settlement where everything - people and equipment and the eggs they were trying to fry - moved weightlessly around.

With gravity, life in space can be based on our experience on Earth. We can have farming and factories and houses and meeting-places that are not designed by guesswork.

The need for gravity is one of the reasons for building a space colony, rather than sending settlers to an existing location such as the Moon or the planets. The Moon is inhospitable. Its gravity is tiny - and any one place on the Moon has 14 days of sunlight followed by 14 of night, which makes agriculture impossible and means there is no using solar energy.

In the settlement, which floats in permanent sunlight, the day-length is controlled. A gigantic mirror about a mile in diameter floats weightlessly above the ring of the settlement. It reflects sunlight on to smaller mirrors that direct it into the ring, through shutters that fix the day length.

The sunlight is constant during the 'daytime', so farming is productive to an extent which can be reached on Earth only occasionally. The aim is to provide a diet similar to that on Earth, but with less fresh meat.

The farms will be arranged in terraces with fish ponds and rice paddies in transparent tanks on the top layer; wheat below; vegetables, soya, and maize below that.

The population of the settlement is fixed at about 10,000 people: farm output can be accurately planned. Research reports suggest that about 44 square metres of vegetables will be needed for each person, and just over five square metres of pastures.

People will live in settlements which don’t look very different from modern small towns on Earth, and this is deliberate. Science-fiction films feature vast glass tower blocks and subterranean warrens, but real-life space settlers won't want these. Throughout history, settlers have tried to put up buildings like the ones they left behind, because these are familiar: space settlers will do the same.

And where would the settlement be? 'Why', say the experts, 'at L5, of course. This reference describes a point on the Moon's orbit around the Earth, equidistant from Moon and Earth, where the gravitational forces of the two bodies balance. (The L stands for Lagrange, a French mathematician who listed a number of 'balance' points.) Those who intend to settle in space have formed an L5 Society. The members are not all impractical eccentrics: that is, they are not all impractical.

Task 5. Answer the following questions in pairs.

1. The article refers to the flights to the Moon in the 1970s as 'camping trips'. What does this mean?

2. Sheffield is about 150 miles from London. How high above the Earth does the Shuttle orbit?

3. Who produced these plans for a space settlement?

4. Why would gravity be so important?

5. Why is the Moon unsuitable for a settlement?

6. How and why would sunlight be controlled?

7. Why would the settlement look similar to 'modern' small towns on Earth?

8. What is L5?

9. 'There could be settlements in space that would house adventurers leading more or less normal lives.' What elements of living in space would be normal? What would be unusual?

Task 6.Express your point of view on the following issues.

1. The article does not say what would occupy people's time in space. What do you think they could do?

2. No reasons are given why there should be settlements in space. What reasons can you think of?

3. Does the article make living in space sound attractive? What would appeal to you?

4. Do you think the expense of such space programmes is justified?

Task 7.Write a list of advantages and disadvantages for having settlements in space. Compare your list with a partner and discuss your ideas.

Task 8.Summarize the article.

Task 9.Prepare a presentation on Russian/European/American space programme.

ADDITIONAL TASKS.

Task 1a. Discuss the following "What ifs":

1. What if...the Soviet Union had never launched the Sputnik?
2. What if...the Apollo Program had never resulted in a landing on the Moon?
3. What if...no one had ever tried to break the sound barrier?
4. What if...the Soviet Union had landed on the Moon first?
5. What if...you were offered an opportunity to ride on the Space Shuttle?

Task 2a. Discuss why people want to go into space and debate whether human space exploration should be replaced with robotic missions. Are there compelling reasons why humans should have a presence in space travel?

Task 3a. Explain how the exploration of space is similar to an expedition to Mt. Everest.

Task 4a. Debate the value of the Apollo Lunar Mission Program. Support your opinion with specifics.

Task 5a. Debate the value of a manned mission to Mars. Support your opinion with specifics.

Task 6a. Discuss the benefits which could result from private industry's participation in the commercialization of space.

Task 7a. Explain how space travel has affected people's lives. How has it affected your life?
LESSON 5

HOME MOVIE

Task 1.Answer the following questions.

1. Do you like to watch movies at home or you prefer to go to the cinema? Why?
2. What can make people stay at home to watch a movie instead of going to the movie theatre?
3. What home movie viewing technologies make this process really entertaining?

Task 2.Read the title of the article. What is the issue of the article? Discuss your ideas with a partner.

Task 3.Read the article.