Vocabulary:

1. booster rocket - ракетный ускоритель, стартовый ракетный двигатель

2. to ascend – подниматься, восходить

3. boost – поддержка, польза

4. stranded – забытый, оставленный

5. attempt – попытка

6. initial - начальный, исходный

7. batch - группа (людей)

8. by all accounts – по общим отзывам

9. overwhelming – несметный, огромный

10. poll - голосование, баллотировка

11. ejection seat – катапультирование

12. to intend – намереваться, планировать

13. infrared sensor - датчик инфракрасного излучения, ИК-датчик

14. nozzle – сопло, форсунка

15. specimen – образец, экземпляр

16. to vomit – страдать рвотой, тошнить

17. swarm – рой

18. pomace (fruit) fly - дрозофила, плодовая мушка

19. to malfunction - не срабатывать, работать неисправно

20. tissue – ткань, материя

I. Answer the following questions:

1. Why did Gagarin enter the ranks of the immortals?

2. What candidates did train intensively for the first manned flight?

3. How did the first Vostok spacecraft equipped? What was its mission?

4. What live specimens were flown into space and returned to Earth during the second flight of Vostok?

5. How many times was Vostok launched into space? Were these launches helpful to our science and cosmonautics or not?

II. Find the English equivalents of the following phrases:

• выходить на орбиту

• огромная польза для науки

• первая попытка

• сенсационные истории о космонавтах

• трудоёмкий (требующий много времени)

• предложенные кандидатуры

• удача и провал

• вернуться в целости и сохранности

• огромное количество кандидатов

III. Make up your own sentences using the phrases listed above.

IV. Give the definitions to the following words:

• candidate

• mission

• cosmonaut

• mechanism

• to survive

• choice

V. Read the following statements and discuss them with a partner:

1. The first ever manned space mission in the eyes of the world ensured that Gagarin entered the ranks of the immortals.

2. The Vostok spacecraft made several flights before the first manned launch, with a mixture of success and failure.

3. The small group was chosen after the Vostok simulator had been built on the understanding that it would be too time-consuming to train all the candidates in the group.

4. The first Vostok spacecrafts were not equipped properly, that’s why there were many failures during the flight.

Giving your opinion you may find the following expressions helpful:

By the way as for me I’d like to know

I see I’m afraid I wonder

It seems to me that I don’t know exactly If I’m not mistaken Simulators

The "ATLAS Aerospace" company invites all the volunteers to pass a course of space training in the simulators of the Yuri Gagarin Russian State Scientific-Research and Test Center of Cosmonaut Training. You will acquire actual skills on a space vehicle control by means of unique hardware and facilities and learn a lot about the space vehicle's docking process. You also will be given fundamentals- of space navigation.

Depending on an amount of skills to be trained and on the amount of the simulated systems the simulators are classified as specialized and integrated ones.

The specialized simulators are used for acquiring skills on carrying out single particular operations, such as approach and docking with other manned space vehicles, run of experiments and research, preparation for air-locking and exit from the manned space vehicle etc. Therefore, specialized simulators simulate operation of single independent systems and informational sources, which are used by cosmonauts for carrying out specific particular tasks.

The integrated simulators are used for acquiring skills on carrying out the mission plan as a whole. All skills and knowledge, which have been mastered by means of specialized simulators and trainers, are integrated here. Integrated simulators enable to simulate and to train the whole program of the forthcoming mission and run of all systems, starting from the procedure of pre-launch preparation of the manned space vehicle and ending up with crew actions after touchdown. The staff of the Mission Control Center regularly participates, in such training, thus enabling to improve its interaction with the crew. Therefore, integrated simulators have the greatest entirety of simulated systems of control.

Depending on feasibility of acceleration sensations the simulators and trainers are divided into the static and dynamic ones. Liability and mobility of the operator's workstation are used as a design principle for dynamic simulators, which simulate the dynamically changing parameters of a space flight. For that the workstation is mounted on the movable platform with 3 or 6 degrees of freedom or in the center of the gimbaled centrifuge cabin. Dynamic simulators ensure improvement of controlling skills under conditions of acceleration sensations of the real space flight as well. The operator's workstation is in its stable (fixed) state in the static simulators and a cosmonaut is not exposed to the acceleration and G-load.

Depending on the simulators placement and location, they are divided into the ground-based and the on-board ones. The first category is mounted, as a rule, in the specially equipped rooms. The on­board simulators and trainers, which are located directly in the manned space vehicle, serve for rehearsing the crew's skills on attitude control, navigational analysis, space vehicle control, which are required only in the certain moments of flight (in the course of the flight path correction, orbital docking, landing etc.).