Today the Russian people celebrate Cosmonautics Day in commemoration of the first space flight in the world which was made by a Russian citizen. So on this lesson we`ll try to give our opinions about space exploration and answer some questions:
What can реорle explore?
What are people`s opinions about space exploration?
What was our country`s contribution to space exploration?
What can people achieve with the help of space in future?
Let`s begin. Watch the presentation. Try to remember the words:
We, humans, live on the Earth. And our planet Earth is surrounded by space. The sky is what we see of space. There are billions of stars and probably billions of other planets moving through space. Our planet is moving through space too. It is the fifth largest of the nine main planets in the solar system and the third planet from the Sun. The Sun is one of many stars in the Milky Way Galaxy or just the Galaxy. It is like a huge disk. The Milky Way Galaxy is not the only galaxy in space. Sometimes people can see without a telescope the Andromeda galaxy and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.
So people can explore their own solar system or travel to other galaxies. But travelling to other galaxies is possible only in huge spaceships and it will take hundreds or thousands of years to travel on board. But when a suitable planet is found some people will begin new life there and then go to investigatethe universe. Astronauts travel in spaceships to explore parts of space that are too far away for people to visit.
the Solar system
the galaxy
the universe
the Milky Way
planet
satellite
the Sun
the Earth
the Moon
intergalactic
to investigate
So answer the question what реорle can explore?
3. Now we`ll read the text «Space Discoveries»
Read the text and say what happened in these years.
150-
1865-
1957-
1961-
1965-
1969-
1987-
While reading the text try to understand the meaning of the words
noun
verb
meaning
exploration
explore
achievement
achieve
launching
launch
Space Discoveries
Men began to dream of travelling to space long ago. The First story about space flight was written in the year 150. In the16th century, Galileo made the first telescope and looked through it at the moon and the planets, many new space stories appeared. In the 1865 Jules Verne`s famous novel «From the Earth to the Moon» was published. Another space-travel story is «The first men in the Moon» by H.G. Wells. But the dream of travelling into space became true only in the 20th century. It happened in November 1957. The first animal in space was Laika, a dog from Russia. Laika travelled around the Earth for 7 days in the satellite Sputnik 2. The Russians were the first in the world to fly into outer space. On April 12 in 1961 the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin goes into space and makes one orbit round the Earth in his spaceship Vostok-1. He orbited the Earth only once, staying in space for 108 minutes. This day went down in history of mankind as an outstanding achievement, opening the space era.
In the course of space exploration there have been lots of achievements of world science and technology. Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman-cosmonaut to make a space flight, A. A. Leonov achieved the first "space walk" in 1965, the first Soviet experimental station with four cosmonauts on board went into orbit. This period saw the launching of many earth satellites, numerous space laboratories. Among the achievements is the landing of the American astronauts Armstrong and Alidrin on the Moon on July 21 in 1969. The Soviet "Lunokhod", automatic orbital stations "Soyuz" and other space laboratories opened up a new period of space exploration. Russia is known to carry out many orbital manned flights involving over 80 cosmonauts, many of them having flown several times. It is well known that Russian cosmonauts hold the record for the longest time in space (L. Kizim has worked 375 days) and for continuous stay in space (V. Titov and M. Manarov – 365 days).
Since Yuri Gagarin’s flight, Russian space science and engineering have come a long way. According to space experts in the US and Europe Russia takes the lead in almost all space exploration. Russia has launched more than 2300 space vehicles designed to perform a variety of functions. Unmanned satellites have been of great significance in the exploration and peaceful use of outer space. They help us learn more about the relations between processes occurring on the sun and near the earth and study the structure of the upper atmosphere. These satellites are provided with scientific equipment for space navigation of civil aviation and ship, as well as exploration of the World Ocean, the earth’s surface and it’s natural resources.
When the 170 million horse power carrier-rocket called "Energia" was successfully tested in 1987, Russian has gone far ahead of the United States in the space competition. With the new "Energia" rocket it’s possible to put into orbit a 100 ton load (one must know that the first satellite carried 83.6 kg). That is enough to put into orbit components for a space station which could be a platform for a manned flight to Mars. Russian experts believe "Energia" to be able to take explorers to the Moon or bring back to the Earth satellites that went out of operation. In principle this makes it possible to build in orbit large complexes from separate units not tens of meters but kilometers across. Cosmonauts would live there permanently. And from these structures may be flights to other planets.
Read the text and answer the questions
How did people begin to dream about space travel?
What Russian words in the text have become known internationally?
What are the achievements of Russia in space research?
What can people achieve with the help of space in future?
Now we`ll devide into 3 groups to discuss if we need space exploration or not
Group 1: for space exploration
Group 2 : against space exploration
Group 3: not very wellaware
Tasks for groups
Group 1. Give as many arguments for space exploration as you can.
Use the expressions
it`s worth trying
to make progress
to change people`s life for better
to dream of travelling to space
to reach and touch stars
to meet beings from other planets and communicate with them
to find a planet to live on
to learn a lot from space research
to solve medical and scientific problems
to find new materials
Group 2. Give as many arguments against space exploration as you can.
Use the expressions
it`s a waste of money
spend money on other (medical, scientific research)
have a lot of serious problems on the earth : dangerous diseases, pollution, a lot of crime, wars
it`s not a key problem for people now
ruin another planet
it`s a chance in a million
to be afraid of
Group 3. Say that you are not very wellaware aboutspace exploration
Use the expressions
to explore space only near the Earth
to find useful information
to use information from sputniks for (weather forecast)
not to think about intergalactic flights
to have no idea
to be very expensive
it`s useless to dream about space travel
don`t care
solve everyday problems
Hometast
Write an essay.
It is a well-known fact that exploring space takes a lot of time and costs much money. Some people think that it is helpful for the developing of space science. The others believe that space exploration is not worth its costs and time taking.