雅思阅读练习：为什么看不到整个月球

　　在人类的天文历史上，月球一直占据着重要的地位。但是大家还是觉得登月的步伐太慢了，人类渴望能够尽快的窥见月球的全部，虽然这个愿望一直被大家的努力慢慢实现，但是为什么现在我们做不到呢?

　　Every schoolchild knows that the "small step forman" and the "giant leap for mankind" are wordsuttered by Neil Armstrong during the 1969 Apollo 11Moon landing. But now the famously reclusiveastronaut has made a rare foray into the publicarena to give an answer to a puzzling question:having gone all that way at such vast expense, whywere the steps and leaps so few?

　　The subject arose when science blogger Robert Krulwich mused on his National Public Radiopage about why Armstrong and crewmate Buzz Aldrin had covered an area barely larger than afootball pitch. "The trip was a 'leap' to be sure, a fantastic accomplishment," he wrote. "Butthe first Moon explorers explored an astonishingly small area." There it might have rested.

　　But much to Krulwich's surprise, he got an answer – and from the commander himself. Inan emailed response, Armstrong, who at 80 is still campaigning to have Nasa resume itsexploration of the lunar surface, said there were multiple reasons for the small footprint ofthat first landing, not least among them nervousness about how well their water-cooled suitswould work.

　　"We were operating in a near perfect vacuum with the temperature well above 200degrees fahrenheit with the local gravity only one-sixth that of Earth," he explained. "Thatcombination cannot be duplicated here on Earth. We did not have any data to tell us howlong the small water tank in our backpacks would suffice."

　　The reply, from a man who famously refuses to give autographs and long refused to speakabout the Moon landings even as his colleagues enthusiastically spoke of their adventures,was surprising enough in itself. Perhaps more surprising still was the detail that an apparentlyenthused Armstrong went into about the difficulties of exploration.

　　First there was the question of television coverage – for us back on Earth and for missioncontrol. Planting a fixed video camera on the Moon's surface was one of Armstrong's firsttasks and Nasa was very clear that thereafter everything he and Aldrin did had to be within itsrange of view, which wasn't large. They wanted to be able to see, for instance, how well theywere walking in those clunky outfits.

　　Here we learn, however, that even Armstrong himself was unable entirely to play by therules. "I candidly admit that I knowingly and deliberately left the planned working area out ofTV coverage to examine and photograph the interior crater walls for possible bedrock exposureor other useful information," he acknowledged. "I felt the potential gain was worth the risk."

　　Armstrong repeated his disappointment that Nasa has not been back and his frustrationwith those who argue there's little point, since that space frontier has already been reached.

　　"I find that mystifying," he said. "It would be as if 16th-century monarchs proclaimed that'we need not go to the New World, we have already been there...'"

　　"Americans have visited and examined six locations on Luna, varying in size from asuburban lot to a small township. That leaves more than 14 million square miles yet toexplore."

　　Moon moments

　　*During the Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin briefly held up Nasa's schedule when he becamethe first man to urinate while standing on the Moon. While millions watched at home on livetelevision, Aldrin made use of a tube fitted inside his space suit to relieve himself.

　　*In 1971, the first American in space, Alan Shepard, also became the first man to hit agolfball on the Moon. After successfully smuggling a club head and balls on to the Apollo 14inside his spacesuit, Shepard took the opportunity at the end of the moonwalk to hit twoballs. He later joked that they went "miles and miles and miles".

　　*In 1972, the astronaut Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission added a musicalsoundtrack to planned proceedings. While skipping along the surface of the Moon, he sang: "Iwas strolling on the Moon one day / in the merry, merry month of... December..."

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