英语听力：自然百科 行星旅行指南：火星 Mars—9

 Want to step outside to take in the scenery or pick up some rocks? As familiar as it might look beyond the port hole, Mars is dangerously alien. The upside is the low gravity will give you super jumping abilities, the down, the almost complete lack of atmosphere. This is not home. There is nothing here to breathe. To find similar conditions of low temperature and pressure on earth, you have to travel three times higher than a commercial airplane to the very edge of space. 

Planetary scientist Bob Brown shows why you should keep your helmet on when visit Mars.

 

“We have this just a beaker full of water. We have put it in this little chamber¹, and attach a vacuum hose to the chamber and pull the air out of the chamber.”

 

As the pressure drops to Martian levels, the water boils at room temperature.

 

“So if you are to take your helmet off on Mars, the liquid in your face especially will start to boil and much the same as this liquid water started to boil, and I guess I don’t have to describe what that might feel like or what it might look like.”

 

A medical travel advisory² might say to keep your suit tightly fitted. But so far, no one has built a suit that would work on Mars. Existing spacesuits are simply too bulky, too heavy and too complicated to wear for the sort of regular activity required on the unforgiving surface of Mars.

 

“Something we take for granted here, we get up in morning, I put on a shirt and a pair of jeans and out I go. So it’s got to be routine, easy to use. Many times I’ve been working out in the field in the Antarctic and the Arctic, and I just have to take the gloves off as I’m doing something that requires that quintessential human capability³ of touch, feel and hold. So my request to the engineers is give me a spacesuit with gloves that will keep me warm and keep me pressurized, but still allow me to use (my hands.)”

1 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

2 advisory   

adj.劝告的，忠告的，顾问的，提供咨询

参考例句：

• I have worked in an advisory capacity with many hospitals.我曾在多家医院做过顾问工作。
• He was appointed to the advisory committee last month.他上个月获任命为顾问委员会委员。

3 capability   

n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等

参考例句：

• She has the capability to become a very fine actress.她有潜力成为杰出演员。
• Organizing a whole department is beyond his capability.组织整个部门是他能力以外的事。