雅思阅读第116套P3-Space: The Final ArchaeologicalFrontier

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Space: The Final ArchaeologicalFrontier

Space travel may still have along way to go, but the notion of archaeological research and heritagemanagement in space is already concerning scientists and environmentalists.

In 1993, University of Hawaii’santhropologist Ben Finney, who for much of his career has studied thetechnology once used by Polynesians to colonize islands in the Pacific,suggested that it would not be premature to begin thinking about thearchaeology of Russian and American aerospace sites on the Moon and Mars.Finney pointed out that just as todays scholars use archaeological records toinvestigate how Polynesians diverged culturally as they explored the Pacific,archaeologists will someday study off-Earth sites to trace the development ofhumans in space. He realized that it was unlikely anyone would be able toconduct fieldwork in the near future, but he was convinced that one day suchwork would be done.

There is a growing awareness,however, that it won’t be long before both corporate adventurers and spacetourists reach the Moon and Mars. There is a wealth of important archaeologicalsites from the history of space exploration on the Moon and Mars and measuresneed to be taken to protect these sites. In addition to the threat from profit-seeking corporations, scholars cite other potentially destructive forces suchas souvenir hunting and unmonitored scientific sampling, as has alreadyoccurred in explorations of remote polar regions. Already in 1999 one companywas proposing a robotic lunar rover mission beginning at the site ofTranquility Base and rumbling across the Moon from one archaeological site toanother, from the wreck of the Ranger S probe to Apollo 17 s landing site. Themission, which would leave vehicle tyre- marks all over some of the most famoussites on the Moon, was promoted as a form of theme-park entertainment.

According to the vaguely wordedUnited Motions Outer Space Treaty of 1967. what it terms 'space junk’ remainsthe property of the country that sent the craft or probe into space. But thetreaty doesn’t explicitly address protection of sites like Tranquility Base,and equating the remains of human exploration of the heavens with 'space junk’leaves them vulnerable to scavengers. Another problem arises through otherinternational treaties proclaiming that land in space cannot be owned by anycountry or individual. This presents some interesting dilemmas for the aspiringmanager of extraterrestrial cultural resources. Does the US own NeilArmstrong's famous first footprints on the Moon but not the lunar dust in whichthey were recorded? Surely those footprints are as important in the story ofhuman development as those left by hominids at Laetoli, Tanzania. But unlikethe Laetoli prints, which have survived for 3.5 million years encased incement-like ash. those at Tranquility Base could be swept away with a casualbrush of a space tourist’s hand. To deal with problems like these, it may betime to look to innovative international administrative structures for thepreservation of historic remains on the new frontier.

The Moon, with its wealth ofsites, will surely be the first destination of archaeologists trained to workin space. But any young scholars hoping to claim the mantle of history’s firstlunar archaeologist will be disappointed. That distinction is already taken.

On November 19. 1969. astronautsCharles Conrad and Alan Bean made a difficult manual landing of the Apollo 12lunar module in the Moon’s Ocean of Storms, just a few hundred feet from anunmanned probe. Surveyor J. that had landed in a crater on April 19. 1967.Unrecognized at the time, this was an important moment in the history ofscience. Bean and Conrad were about to conduct the first archaeological studieson the Moon.

After the obligatory plantingof the American flag and some geological sampling, Conrad and Bean made theirway to Surveyor 3. They observed that the probe had bounced after touchdown andcarefully photographed the impressions made by its footpads. The wholespacecraft was covered in dust, perhaps kicked up by the landing.

The astronaut-archaeologistscarefully removed the probes television camera, remote sampling arm. and piecesof tubing. They bagged and labelled these artefacts, and stowed them on boardtheir lunar module. On their return to Earth, they passed them on to theDaveson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and the Hughes Air and SpaceCorporation in bl Segundo, California. There, scientists analyzed the changesin these aerospace artefacts.

One result of the analysisastonished them. A fragment of the television camera revealed evidence of thebacteria Streptococcus mitis. I or a moment it was thought Conrad and Bean haddiscovered evidence for life on the Moon, but after further research the realexplanation became apparent. While the camera was being installed in the probeprior to the launch, someone sneezed on it. The resulting bacteria hadtravelled to the Moon, remained in an alternating freezing.' boiling vacuum formore than two years, and returned promptly to life upon reaching the safety ofa laboratory back on Earth.

The finding that not even thevastness of space can stop humans from spreading a sore throat was anunexpected spin-off. But the artefacts brought back by Rean and Conrad have abroader significance. Simple as they may seem, they provide the first exampleof extraterrestrial archaeology and perhaps more significant for the history ofthe discipline formational archaeology, the study of environmental and culturalforces upon the life history of human artefacts in space.

SECTION 3: QUESTIONS 27-40

Questions 28-33

Complete each sentence with thecorrect ending A-H from the box below.

Write the correct letter A-Hin boxes 28-33 on your answer sheet.

A

activities of tourists and scientists have harmed the environment.

B

some sites in space could be important in the history of space exploration.

C

vehicles used for tourism have polluted the environment.

D

it may be unclear who has responsibility for historic human footprints.

E

past explorers used technology in order to find new places to live.

F

man-made objects left in space are regarded as rubbish.

G

astronauts may need to work more closely with archaeologists.

H

important sites on the Moon may be under threat.

28 ____________    Ben Finney's main academic work investigates the way that

29 ____________    Ben Finney thought that in the long term

30 ____________    Commercial pressures mean that in the immediate future

31 ____________    Academics are concerned by the fact that in isolated regions on Earth.

32 ____________    One problem with the 1967 UN treaty is that

33 ____________    The wording of legal agreements over ownership of land in space means that

Questions 34-38

Complete the flow chart below.

Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORDfrom the passage for each answer.

Questions 39-40

Choose TWO letters A-E

The TWO main purposes ofthe writer of this text are to explain

Athe reasons why space archaeology is notpossible.

Bthe dangers that could follow fromcontamination of objects from space.

Cthe need to set up careful controls overspace tourism.

Dthe need to preserve historic sites andobjects in space.

Ethe possible cultural effects of spacetravel.