The Linguistic Culture-12 (American Science) (1157938), страница 2
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During the late 1940s,the US Department of Defense pursued upper atmospheric research as a meansof assuring American leadership in this field. A major step forward came whenPresident D. Eisenhower approved a plan to orbit a scientific satellite to gatherscientific data about the Earth.In October 1957 the world’s first artificial satellite SPUTNIC 1 was launched in theSoviet Union. The space race began and in 1958 the Congress and the Presidentcreated the Federal Independent Agency National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA) as “An Act to provide for research into problems of flightwithin and outside the Earth’s atmosphere and for other purposes”.
NASA washeaded by Famous German rocket specialist Werner von Braun and absorbedinto itself the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and lots ofother organizations. It keeps three major research laboratories and some smallertest facilities (with the annual budget of 100 million dollars and 8000 employees).Eventually NASA created other Centers and a number of affiliates including theSpace Center in Huston, where the forming and training of the space crews iscarried out.When in1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin returned to the earth hepronounced a well-known challenge: “Now let the other countries try to catchus”. Several weeks later President Kennedy appealed to Congress: “I believe thisnation should commit itself to achieving the goal of landing a man on the moonand returning him safely to earth”.After that NASA began to conduct space missions.
On May 5th, 1961 Alan B.Shepard Jr. became the first American to fly into space, and on February 20th,1962 John H. Glenn became the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth. One of thehighlights of the program occurred on June 3, 1965, when Edward H. Whitebecame the first US astronaut to conduct a spacewalk.The main achievement of NASA during its early years involved the humanexploration of the Moon.
In 1968, after 11 years of major challenges andtragedies – notably 1967 fire in an Apollo capsule, having taken the lives of threeastronauts, the Apollo project was launced under the auspices of the NASA.Apollo 7 carried three men around the earth, and then Apollo 8 carried threeothers around the moon. Apollo 9 and 10 tested the workability of the lunarmodule. On July 16, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landedon the moon in Apollo 11, leaving behind a plaque that read: “Here Men fromPlanet Earth First Set Foot upon the Moon. We Came in Peace for All Mankind”.“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, said Neil Armstrongon returning to the earth.Since then, there have been other American flights to the moon.
Displays at theNational Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. show the developments inspace travel. From the scientific point of view, Apollo 15 and Apollo 16expeditions were especially important, as they were aimed at learning moreabout the origin of the moon and the universe. During the moon expeditionastronauts Scott and Irwin were able to leave the lunar Module to drive aroundover more than 27 kilometers of lunar ground and bring back a chunk of trulyancient lunar crust.
After Apollo 17 the exploration of space shifted from theApollo lunar program to Skylab, the manned orbital space station.In 1975, NASA began to cooperate with the Soviet Union to achieve the firstinternational human spaceflight, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). The twospacecrafts were launched within 7.5 hours, docked three hours after and 3American astronauts Thomas P.
Stafford, Vance Brand, Donald Slaytor and 2Soviet Cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Valerii Kubasov met and shook hands inorbit. After that various US space shuttles docked with the Soviet Mir nine times,and 52 American astronauts as well as astronauts from Europe and Japan, visitedthe station for research and training.During the 1980s and the 1990s, the USA launched several spaceships toinvestigate distant planets: Jupiter, Venus and Mercury. The Viking probes landedon Mars and provided valuable information of the planet. Since 1975 there havebeen a number of space expeditions to Mars, Jupiter and its moon Europastimulating public interest in aerospace exploration.
NASA’s Hubble SpaceTelescope launched in 1990 discovered 16 extrasolar planet candidates. Usinginnovative technologies, the Mars spacecraft landed on Mars on July 4th, 1997and explored the surface of the planet. The Mars Pathfinder mission was ascientific success, watched by many via the Internet.By the 1980s NASA had created the nation’ space transportation system ofthe future – the Space Shuttle that was a reusable manned spacecraft taking offlike a rocket and landing like an airplane. After the number of successful missionsof shuttle Columbia, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger explodedsoon after liftoff due to the leak of one of two Solid Rocket Boosters.
All sevenmembers of the crew including a woman astronaut were killed. On the First ofFebruary 2003 American Space Shuttle Columbia again broke up over Texas as itdescended for a landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida following a 16-dayflight. All its seven crewmembers died. After the Challenger disasters the Shuttleprogram was stopped for over two years.In spite of the tragedies and loss of the human lives NASA continued spacescientific research with the cooperation between Russian and U.S. scientists.The USA and Russia set up quite a number united workgroups for coordination ofcooperated actions in such fields as biology, astrophysics, solar physics andinterplant researches.
From 1995 to 1998 the joint programs Mir-Shuttle and MirNASA were carried on. The USA-Russian Space cooperation was supervised byjoint American-Russian workgroups, including the representatives of differentgovernmental bodies, universities and institutions of the USA and Russia.The ILS (International Launch Services) joint venture was formed in 1995 andbecame another example of cooperation between the two countries One of thenotable events in bilateral space work was the establishment of the Sea LaunchInternational consortium, of which 40% was owned by Boeing Commercial SpaceCo. and 25 % by Russian Energiya Rocket Space Corp. The achieved experiencepaved the way for the creation of another International project ISS with theparticipation of 11 countries.
The permanent work of ISS began in November2000. In May 2000 the first launch of the U.S. rocket-carrier Atlas 111, equippedwith a Russian RD-180 engines was conducted.John Mather and George Smoot’s Nobel Prize awards of 2006 marked theinception of cosmology as a precise science and manifested the work of morethan 1,000 researchers, engineers and other participants for the experimentalmeasurements that revealed the blackbody form of the microwave backgroundradiation measured by satellite launched by NASA in 1989.1.
Answer the questions.1. What do you know about NAS activity? What are the similar and differentfeatures in the work of the US National Academy of sciences and the Russian one?2. Which non-profit scientific institutions do you know in the USA? What is “ThinkTanks”?3. Which role did the World Wars play in the development of American science?4. What part did the US universities occupy in the development of research?5. Which names of American Nobel prize winners do you know? Do you know anyRussians among them?6. What do you know about NASA activities?7.
Tell about the space age in the USA and Russia. Give the examples of spacecooperation of our two countries.2. Render the texts in English:Современная сеть научных организаций в США включает государственныеведомственные лаборатории, федерально финансируемые исследовательские центры,частные промышленные фирмы и некоммерческие (бесприбыльные) организации. Этообусловлено тем, что федеральное правительство тратит огромные средства на науку.Оно - ocновной источник финансированияфундаментальных исследований и самыйкрупный заказчик военных программ.Б). Бесприбыльные исследовательские организации.Бесприбыльные исследовательские организации не ставят своей целью получениекоммерческой прибыли. Это освобождает их от федеральных налогов и делает ихотносительно независимыми.
Бесприбыльными исследовательскими организациямиявляются исследовательские отделы университетов, федерально финансируемыеисследовательскиецентры,научно-техническиеобщества,музеи,частныеблаготворительные фонды. Сюда же относятся независимые исследовательскиеинституты, профессиональные общества и Академия наук.Наибольший объем исследований среди бесприбыльных организаций выполняютнезависимые исследовательские институты. Они не входят в состав фирм и университетови различны по своим размерам и структуре. Это, как правило, специализированныеисследовательские организации.
Старейшими бесприбыльными организациями являютсяМеллоновский, Беттелевский и Рокфеллеровский фонды. Особое место в этой группебесприбыльныхфедеральныхисследовательскихцентровзанимает«РЭНДкорпорейшен». Это специализированный научный центр, который дает независимуюэкспертную оценку качества и способов исполнения различных научно-исследовательскихпроектов.
Эта корпорация проводит предварительные исследования, предшествующиевыполнению проекта, но не принимает практического участия в их осуществлении, хотяконсультирует исполнителей в ходе выполнения проекта. Ее часто называют «мозговымцентром», или «мыслительным резервуаром».Read and translate the following words and word combination:To spawn - (создавать, зарождаться, размножаться), an entrepreneur предприниматель, владелец предприятия ,venture capital –капитал,вложенный в предприятие, synergy - явление в деловой практике, когдаобщий результат превышает сумму отдельных эффектов, to endow капитал, вкладываемый в предприятие, to impedе- обеспечивать капиталом,Insulator - диэлектрик, непроводник, flagship - флагман.Geographically, the Silicon Valley is the northern part of the Santa Clara County,an area stretching from the south end of the San Francisco to San Jose.The name Silicon Valley was coined in 1971 by Don C.
Hoefler, editor of theMicroelectronics News, when he used this term in his magazine as the title for aseries of articles about semiconductor industry in Santa Clara County. SiliconValley saw the development of the integrated circuit, the microprocessor, thepersonal computer and has spawned a lot of high-tech products as pocketcalculators, cordless telephones, lasers or digital watches. Looking at our high-tech society in which the PC has become indispensable-both in businesses and athome, the crucial role of Silicon Valley as the birthplace of the microelectronicsand then the PC revolution has become even more evident.Silicon Valley is also seen as a place where many entrepreneurs backed byventure capital have made the American Dream come true as “OvernightMillionaires”.
This makes Silicon Valley a philosophy saying that everything whichseems impossible is feasible and that improvements in the US society can takeplace. The mayor of San Jose Thomas Emery called it the “economic and culturalfrontier where successful entrepreneurship and venture capitalism, innovativework rules and open management styles provide the background for the mostprofound inquiry ever into the nature of intelligence” which might, together with“bioengineering and artificially intelligent software”, affect our evolution.
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