VOA标准英语2011--Space Shuttle's End Prompts Doubts About

Space Shuttle's End Prompts Doubts About NASA's Future
One day after the landing of Atlantis ended the 30-year space shuttle program, the company that ran shuttle operations for the U.S. space agency NASA is dismissing 1,510 employees. The end of the shuttle program also leaves the United States with no means of putting astronauts into orbit other than paying Russia around $50 million per ride. Many Americans are concerned that the glory days of U.S. space travel may have ended.
The local news in central Florida now is about job losses and an uncertain future for the space program that focused world attention on this beach resort area for more than half a century.
One man who knows that history well is 79-year-old Murphy Wardman. He worked for General Dynamics¹ for 37 years, developing some of the heavy lift rockets that took the first U.S. astronauts into space and, eventually, to the moon.
Now he watches as family members working with the space program lose their jobs.
"I've got one son-in-law that has just been laid off, I've got another son-in-law that is going to be laid off, I have a daughter who is going to be laid off," said Wardman.
Wardman is one of several retired² space engineers who volunteer at the Space Walk of Fame Museum in Titusville, across the Indian river from the Kennedy Space Center's iconic Vehicle Assembly building.
"A monument to what used to be; the monument to how America used to be," said Wardman.
Wardman said he thinks the U.S. space program took a wrong turn back in the early 1970s when it turned away from further development of deep space missions.
"We were already on the moon, we already had the capability³. Today, we can't get anything anywhere," he said.
Wardman and other former space workers supported NASA's Constellation⁴ program that planned to establish bases on the moon to carry out a mission to Mars.
President Barack Obama canceled that program last year, however, in favor of a decades-long plan that envisions trips to an asteroid⁵ and to Mars. Wardman does not think that will ever happen.
"The Constellation program was our best hope and it got canceled," he said.
But NASA officials say the U.S. space program is not foundering⁶ and is in transition to a new phase. Private companies are developing new vehicles to carry astronauts to the space station and officials expect at least one to be ready for launch by 2015. In the meantime, however, NASA has no way of putting people in space.
That gap in U.S. space transportation capability bothers many former astronauts, including Franklin Chang-Diaz, who flew on seven shuttle missions.
"We did not have the foresight⁷ to really develop some alternative and think about the technology that needed to be developed 10 or 15 years before this happened," said Chang-Diaz.
Chang-Diaz heads the Ad Astra Rocket Company in Houston. He is developing a plasma⁸ rocket and is excited about NASA's long-term deep-space projects.
"You close a chapter in order to open a new one and we look to the new one to be even better," said Chang-Diaz.
But some NASA workers worry that the current budget fight in Congress bodes⁹ ill for ambitious and expensive space projects.
That also is the concern of Wardman, whose hopes for future generations in space have now dimmed.
"I have a bunch of grandkids and I keep them all fired up about the space program, but I don't know where they are going to go; I really do not know what we are going to do," he said.
Wardman said he will keep watch on the nearby Kennedy Space Center, hoping for signs that he is wrong.

1 dynamics   

n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态

参考例句：

• In order to succeed,you must master complicated knowledge of dynamics.要取得胜利，你必须掌握很复杂的动力学知识。
• Dynamics is a discipline that cannot be mastered without extensive practice.动力学是一门不做大量习题就不能掌握的学科。

2 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

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。

4 constellation   

n.星座n.灿烂的一群

参考例句：

• A constellation is a pattern of stars as seen from the earth. 一个星座只是从地球上看到的某些恒星的一种样子。
• The Big Dipper is not by itself a constellation. 北斗七星本身不是一个星座。

5 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。

6 foundering   

v.创始人( founder的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The lifeboat soon got abreast of the foundering ship. 救生艇很快就赶到了那艘正在下沉的船旁。 来自互联网
• With global climate-change negotiations foundering, the prospects of raising cash for REDD that way look poor. 由于就全球气候变化的谈判破裂，通过这种方式来为REDD集资前景堪忧。 来自互联网

7 foresight   

n.先见之明，深谋远虑

参考例句：

• The failure is the result of our lack of foresight.这次失败是由于我们缺乏远虑而造成的。
• It required a statesman's foresight and sagacity to make the decision.作出这个决定需要政治家的远见卓识。

8 plasma   

n.血浆，细胞质，乳清

参考例句：

• Keep some blood plasma back for the serious cases.留一些血浆给重病号。
• The plasma is the liquid portion of blood that is free of cells .血浆是血液的液体部分，不包含各种细胞。

9 bodes   

v.预示，预告，预言( bode的第三人称单数 )；等待，停留( bide的过去分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待

参考例句：

• This bodes ill for the failure of the programme. 这是那项计划有凶兆。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• This bodes him no good. 这对他是不祥之兆。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》