Ex. 6. Read the text. Be ready to speak on the issues. Give your comments.
A SPACESHIP COME TO GRIEF?
Now let us consider the chemical peculiarities of the lunar rock. Upon analysis, American scientists have found chromium, titanium and zirconium in it. These are all metals with refractory, mechanically strong and anti-corrosive properties. A combination of them all would have inevitable resistance to heat and the ability to stand up to means of aggression, and could be used on Earth for linings for electrical furnaces.
Неизбежный.
If a material had to be devised to protect a giant artificial satellite from the unfavorable effects of temperature, from cosmic radiation and meteorite bombardment, the experts would probably have hit on precisely these metals. In that case it is not clear why lunar rock is such an extraordinarily poor heat conductor – a factor which so amazed the astronauts? Wasn't that what the designers of the super-sputnik of the Earth were after?
From the engineers point of view, this spaceship of ages long past which we call the Moon is superbly constructed. There may be a good reason for its extreme longevity. It is even possible that it predates our own planet. At any rate, some pieces of lunar rock have proved older than the oldest on Earth, although it is true, this applies to the age of the materials and not of the structure for which they were used. And from the number of craters on its surface, the Moon itself is no chicken.
Долголетие; более раннего происхождения.
It is, of course, difficult to say when it began to shine in the sky above the Earth, but on the basis of some preliminary estimates one might hazard a guess that it was around two thousand million years ago.
We do not, of course, imagine that the moon is still inhabited, and probably many of its automatic devices have stopped working, too. The stabilisers have ceased functioning and the poles have shifted. Even though the moon keeps that same side turned towards us, for some time it has been unsteady on its own axis, on occasion showing us part of its reverse side which were once invisible to observers on the Earth – for example, the Selenites themselves if they made expeditions here.
Обитаема; перестать.
What is the Moon today? Is it a colossal necropolis, a «city of the dead,» where some form of life became extinct? Is it a kind cosmic Flying Dutchman? A craft abandoned by its crew and controlled automatically? We do not know and we shall probably not.
Вымерший.
UNIT 3