​六级2015年12月仔细阅读P4（space tourism）

#考虫四六级系统班#最好的四六级备考方式

4. After being dogged by technical delays for years, Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic’s founder, had recently suggested that a SpaceShipTwo craft would carry its first paying customers as soon as February 2015. That now seems an impossible timeline. In July, a sister craft of the crashed space plane was reported to be about half-finished. The other half will have to wait, as authorities of America’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board work out what went wrong.

翻译：多年Virgin Galactic一直困扰于技术的延误，公司创始人Richard Branson爵士近来声明“太空船2号” 飞行器最快将于2015年2月搭载其第一批付费乘客。这一日程目前看起来不大可能实现了。据报道，与失事航天飞机同类型的一个飞行器在七月份已大约完工一半。而另一半则需等到美国联邦航空管理局和国家运输安全委员会的权威人士找到问题之后才能重新开工。

词汇：

1）dog [dɒɡ] vt.（灾难等）缠住

2）crash [kræʃ] v.撞击；坠毁

5. In the meantime, the entire space tourism industry will be on tenterhooks (坐立不安). The 2004 Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act, intended to encourage private space vehicles and services, prohibits the transportation secretary (and thereby the FAA) from regulating the design or operation of private spacecraft, unless they have resulted in a serious or fatal injury to crew or passengers. That means that the FAA could suspend Virgin Galactic’s licence to fly. It could also insist on checking private manned spacecraft as thoroughly as it does commercial aircraft. While that may make suborbital travel safer, it would add significant cost and complexity to an emerging industry that has until now operated largely as the playground of billionaires and dreamy engineers.

翻译：与此同时，整个太空旅游业都使人坐立不安。2004版《商业太空发射修正法》旨在鼓励私人太航天器和服务的发展，禁止交通部长（以及联邦航空局）管理私人航天器的设计或操作，除非它们对机组人员或乘客造成了严重或致命的伤害。这意味着联邦航空局可能会吊销Virgin Galactic公司的飞行执照。联邦航空局还可能坚持要求对私人的载人航天器进行彻底的检查，就像其对商用飞机所做的那样。虽然这可能会使亚轨道旅行更加安全，但也会令这一新兴行业的成本和复杂性显著增加，到目前为止，这一新兴行业主要是亿万富翁和那些爱幻想的工程师的乐土。

词汇：

1) fatal ['feɪtl]  adj.致命的；毁灭性的；决定性的

2) suspend [sə'spend] v.暂停；悬浮；中止；勒令停职

3) insist on v.坚持;强调;坚决要求

4) suborbital [sʌ'bɔːbətl]  adj.不满轨道一整圈的（亚轨道）

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