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Transcript

A Year in Space (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Bruce Gulland and I'm Liz Wade. Spotlight uses
• 0:11
  a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
• 0:18
  matter where in the world they live. It is twenty fifteen. A rocket
• 0:31
  ship stands upright in a large field. The technicians inside have made sure it
• 0:37
  is safe, and now a yellow flame begins to glow underneath the rocket.
• 0:43
  The ship rises from the ground. Inside, the astronauts prepare themselves for a
• 0:50
  difficult ride. The speed of the rocket is pushing them back against their chairs
• 0:56
  so that they cannot move. Even the skin on their faces gets pushed back.
• 1:03
  But soon the ship passes through the Earth's atmosphere and finally into space.
• 1:10
  There is less gravity here, so the astronauts begin to float off their seats.
• 1:15
  Only their seat belts hold them back. One of these astronauts is named
• 1:22
  Scott Kelly. Soon he and the others will arrive at the International Space Station
• 1:27
  or ISS. They are bringing supplies and they will help run the station.
• 1:34
  But Kelly's trip is special. Many of the others will be at the station
• 1:40
  a few months, but Kelly will be in space for an entire year.
• 1:47
  Today's spotlight is on Scott Kelly's year in space and what that might mean for
• 1:52
  future space travel. Today, many people have been to space, some have
• 2:00
  even lived there longer than Scott Kelly. Valeri Polyakov was a Russian cosmonaut.
• 2:07
  He stayed at the ISS for almost fourteen months. But still scientists do not
• 2:15
  know much about what happens to a person's body when they go to space.
• 2:23
  This is why Scott Kelly is so important. He is an identical twin.
• 2:30
  Scott Kelly has a brother named Mark Kelly. They look almost exactly alike.
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  They are identical, but most importantly, they have the same genes. Scientists
• 2:44
  examined the twins before Scott went to space. When he was in space,
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  Scott sent the scientist's genetic samples, and when he came back, they examined
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  both twins again. They could then com hair the results. They could compare
• 3:02
  scientifically what space did to Scott's body. Space is a very different environment than
• 3:13
  Earth, and human bodies are not very used to it. Most of this
• 3:19
  has to do with the lack of gravity. Living without gravity would be very
• 3:23
  strange for most of us. For example, you cannot drink from a cup
• 3:29
  in space. Water will not stay inside water floats in a ball in the
• 3:36
  open. Instead, you must drink from a pouch or a straw. Using
• 3:43
  the toilet can also be a messy business. People on the ISS have special
• 3:49
  machines to capture their waste, otherwise it would float around and contaminate the environment.
• 3:57
  But living in space means more than changing your environment. It actually changes
• 4:02
  a person's body. When Scott Kelly entered the ISS, there was no gravity
• 4:09
  pushing down his spine, so his spine got longer. In space, he
• 4:15
  was about three centimeters taller than on Earth. He also did not have to
• 4:20
  use his muscles much. In space. You can float in one direction just
• 4:27
  by lightly kicking a wall, or you can guide yourself with your hands.
• 4:32
  This sounds very fun, but it also means muscles atrophy and lose their power
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  to move. If a person were to go from space to Earth, it
• 4:44
  would be very difficult for them to move, So people living in space must
• 4:49
  exercise a lot. This also keeps their bones strong and healthy. But other
• 4:58
  changes happened Scott Kelly that no one had seen before. The way his genes
• 5:04
  worked changed. People's genes do not change, but a person's environment can change
• 5:13
  what those genes do. Scientists call this gene expression. If a person is
• 5:20
  in a very stressful environment, different genes will express themselves. Scott Kelly was
• 5:29
  in a very strange environment, so his genes started expressing themselves differently. Christopher
• 5:38
  Mason is a professor at wild Cornell Medicine. He also helped study Scott and
• 5:44
  Mark. He spoke about the study at a conference. As soon as Scott
• 5:50
  got into space, there was a huge change in over one thousand genes that
• 5:56
  are changing a lot, so clear the body and cells were adapting to this
• 6:02
  new environment of space. Few of these changes hurt Scott Kelly. Some even
• 6:11
  made his immune system stronger. But being in space for a year did have
• 6:16
  some negative effects. The shape of his eyes changed, his vision got worse,
• 6:24
  his blood vessels became swollen. He got greater risk of heart disease.
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  Scott also encountered some radiation in space. This means he has a higher risk
• 6:36
  for cancer. After three hundred and forty days, Scott Kelly returned to Earth,
• 6:46
  but even after he left space, scientists continued studying him. Most of
• 6:51
  the changes did not last long. Some of his DNA was damaged and he
• 7:00
  had a harder time thinking as quickly as before, but several months afterward he
• 7:05
  reported feeling normal again. These results are very important for future space travel.
• 7:14
  Not everyone's bodies will change like Scots. Space affects everyone differently. It even
• 7:21
  affects women differently than men. But Scott Kelly's year in space will help predict
• 7:29
  things that might go wrong, and it can help prevent these problems in the
• 7:33
  future. Some people want to go even farther into space, maybe to distant
• 7:44
  planets or other solar systems, but there may be some danger in going to
• 7:49
  space. It is difficult to understand how the body might change even farther from
• 7:57
  Earth. People travel to other planets would be in space even longer, and
• 8:05
  they would encounter a lot of radiation. But probably this will not stop the
• 8:11
  next generation of explorers. Space is just too strange and what you might find
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  there is too interesting. Scott Kelly has retired from NASA, but he still
• 8:26
  wants to go to space. John Logsdon is a historian. He studies the
• 8:33
  history of space travel. He spoke to Scott Kelly in twenty eighteen about what
• 8:39
  it is like in space. Kelly said space is the most joyous and magical
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  place I could think of. Would you go to space if you could?
• 8:56
  Why or why not? Do you think people should travel into space? You
• 9:01
  can leave a comment on our website at www dot Spotlight English dot com.
• 9:09
  You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The
• 9:16
  writer of this program was Dan Chrissman. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The
• 9:22
  voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes
• 9:28
  were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called a
• 9:35
  Year in Space. Visit our website to download our free official app for Android
• 9:43
  and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight
• 9:48
  program. Goodbye one