The men and women hurtling around the planet - Module 9

C1 Advanced · Gapped Text · Advanced Expert Coursebook, Pearson Education

You are going to read a newspaper article about life on the International Space Station. Six paragraphs have been removed from the extract. Choose from the paragraphs A-G the one which fits each gap (1–6). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

The men and women hurtling around the planet

The first crew entered the International Space Station in 2000. What is it like to be aboard a big tin can travelling at 17,500 mph?

In time, people can perfect the skill and glide down the length of the station, straight as an arrow, without touching anything except with their fingertips. People sit next to each other in mid-air, tapping at computers, with only a toe hooked under a wall strap to anchor themselves.

From down here there is little more to see, but close up the speck takes on a more complex form: a shiny hulk of interconnecting tubes, metal frames and giant wing-like panels. As roomy as a five-bedroomed house, these are the most extreme living quarters ever built.

Each of the crew has a cupboard-like cabin where they can hook a bag to the wall and snuggle down into it. Unsurprisingly, this arrangement can take some getting used to. Just as you are nodding off, you can feel as though you’ve fallen off a building.

‘You see these pale faces on the other side and they’re always excited to see you,’ says astronaut Piers Sellers. The space station has a permanent crew of six so a new arrival is a cause for celebration.

However, for the exceptional views, you need to step outside. Space walkers see whole continents, mountain ranges, cities and ships crossing oceans. Though you’re hurtling through space, the senses are rarely aware of the speed.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The orbiting outpost is forever falling to Earth and would crash-land were it not moving so fast as to maintain a gentle curve around the planet. In orbit, things are weightless simply because they are all falling at the same speed.

On the downside, many astronauts lose their sense of smell and taste. ‘All our meals taste like cardboard,’ says one astronaut. With no gravity exerting itself on the body, both bones and muscles begin to waste and, on long stays, crews try to spend at least two hours a day exercising.

Only a couple of hundred people have first-hand knowledge of life on the largest orbiting spacecraft ever built and only a fraction have stayed more than six months. The longer the stint, the closer these veterans come to perfecting the art of life in freefall. The footage of floating astronauts chasing food through the air makes it seem as if the space station is free from the pull of gravity.

Getting to the space station takes two days, flying at more than 30 times the altitude of a cruising jumbo jet and at a breakneck 17,500 mph. The shuttle approaches from below and performs a graceful backwards roll as it approaches. The docking procedure is as slow and cautious as you might expect, given the price tags on the spacecraft (£1.1bn for a shuttle and around £64bn for the space station). Once they are locked together it takes half an hour or so to equalise the pressure and finally open the hatches that separate the crews.

That said, even the most welcome visitors can cause chaos if they are inexperienced. There is a subtle art to moving around without crashing into anything (or anyone) or knocking computers, equipment and other objects off the walls, to which they are attached with Velcro pads. One shuttle pilot confesses to leaving a trail of laptops behind him the first time he tried to fly from one room to another. ‘You are like a bull in a china shop at first,’ he said.

In such close quarters, personal hygiene is a must but the weightless environment makes washing difficult. Living in such conditions also does strange things to the body. Body fluids move up to the head, leaving astronauts with thin, weak-looking legs and swollen faces, which has the happy side-effect of erasing wrinkles and making space station crews look years younger, if only temporarily.

It takes the space station one and a half hours to fly around the planet, making for 16 complete laps every day. As a result, although the visual effect is spectacular, the continual assault of daylight and darkness would play havoc with astronauts’ body clocks. To avoid this, a shutters-down schedule is imposed by mission controllers.

‘Short visits to the space station are hectic but easier to cope with psychologically than longer ones. If you are there for a week or two, you are basically on a high the whole time,’ says a Belgian astronaut. ‘It’s not the same when you are there for six months. You need to manage your mood and motivation. What you really miss is the contact with your family and friends.’

Few people will have noticed a small bright light which appears low in the night sky from time to time before vanishing into the darkness. However, for a handful of people, that dot on the horizon is a place called home. What looks like a wandering star is sunlight reflecting off the International Space Station, 220 miles above Earth. ___ Only a couple of hundred people have first-hand knowledge of life on the largest orbiting spacecraft ever built and only a fraction have stayed more than six months. The longer the stint, the closer these veterans come to perfecting the art of life in freefall. The footage of floating astronauts chasing food through the air makes it seem as if the space station is free from the pull of gravity. ___ Getting to the space station takes two days, flying at more than 30 times the altitude of a cruising jumbo jet and at a breakneck 17,500 mph. The shuttle approaches from below and performs a graceful backwards roll as it approaches. The docking procedure is as slow and cautious as you might expect, given the price tags on the spacecraft (£1.1bn for a shuttle and around £64bn for the space station). Once they are locked together it takes half an hour or so to equalise the pressure and finally open the hatches that separate the crews. ___ That said, even the most welcome visitors can cause chaos if they are inexperienced. There is a subtle art to moving around without crashing into anything (or anyone) or knocking computers, equipment and other objects off the walls, to which they are attached with Velcro pads. One shuttle pilot confesses to leaving a trail of laptops behind him the first time he tried to fly from one room to another. ‘You are like a bull in a china shop at first,’ he said. ___ In such close quarters, personal hygiene is a must but the weightless environment makes washing difficult. Living in such conditions also does strange things to the body. Body fluids move up to the head, leaving astronauts with thin, weak-looking legs and swollen faces, which has the happy side-effect of erasing wrinkles and making space station crews look years younger, if only temporarily. ___ It takes the space station one and a half hours to fly around the planet, making for 16 complete laps every day. As a result, although the visual effect is spectacular, the continual assault of daylight and darkness would play havoc with astronauts’ body clocks. To avoid this, a shutters-down schedule is imposed by mission controllers. ___ ‘Short visits to the space station are hectic but easier to cope with psychologically than longer ones. If you are there for a week or two, you are basically on a high the whole time,’ says a Belgian astronaut. ‘It’s not the same when you are there for six months. You need to manage your mood and motivation. What you really miss is the contact with your family and friends.’

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