Will We Live In Space?

People have dreamed of travelling in space for thousands of years. But it was not until 1957 that it became a reality.

On October 4, 1957 the USSR launched the first man-made satellite into space. It was called Sputnik 1.

On April 12, 1961 the soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. The first spacewoman in the world was Valentina Tereshkova. She made 48 orbits in 1963 in her Vostok 6.

On July 20, 1969 the American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon.

In 1986 the Russian space station Mir was launched.

Progress is inevitable and soon we'll be able to visit and even live on other planets. The 21st century may turn science fiction into science fact. Scientists are already at work on the International Space Station, a "city of space". It will be the size of a football field and will weigh over 200 tons. A team of 10-15 spacemen will probably be able to live and work at the International Space Station in 2005.

The next step will be the first moonbase. 20 or 30 scientists will live inside a dome with an artificial atmosphere. This will make it possible for them to live and work without spacesuits. It also means that they will be able to grow food. If the moonbase is a success, the first lunar city will be built. It will have schools and universities, cinemas and discos, scientific laboratories and hospitals. Even babies will be bom on the moon!

The next great step will be when people land on our nearest planet Mars. Scientists say that the planet once had water on its surface. If that water is now frozen underground, humans will be able to use it someday. By the end of the 21-st century, scientists hope, it will be possible to "terraform" Mars — transform the planet into an earthlike place with air and water. Space awaits the 21st century's pioneers.

Life In The 21-st Century

We've entered a new era: the twenty-first century. Of course, it's exciting and we are trying to predict what our life will be like in the future. It will certainly become better — I'm sure of it.

Robots will do all the dangerous and dirty work for us and our daily life will become easier. They'll sweep the floor, dust the furniture, wash the dishes and even cook! It doesn't mean we'll become lazier, no. When everything is automated, we'll be able to do more creative jobs.

We'll be able to call our friends on a videophone and type up homework by talking to a small gadget that understands the human voice.

Scientists (or probably computers?) will find solutions to our most urgent problems. People will stop dying from cancer and AIDS and will live to be 150 years old.

There will be no more famine on our planet and no more hungry children. Cities will become cleaner, greener and safer. We'll drive electric cars and live in houses with lots of plants and special air-cleaning gadgets.

Atmospheric pollution will be stopped and our planet will be saved.

There will be no more wars, no more criminals and no more terrorists.

People will learn to live in peace and understand each other.

We'll have more free time and longer holidays. We'll be able to travel in space and — who knows? — one day we'll be able to spend our holidays on Mars.

I'm really optimistic about the future. After all, we are becoming wiser. The superpowers are disarming, governments are waking up to Green issues...

Anyway, it's up to us to look after our planet and try to make it a better place to live.

Great Inventions

Television (1920s)

The invention that swept the world and changed leisure habits for countless millions was pioneered by Scottish-born electrical engineer John Logie Baird. It had been realised for some time that light could be converted into electrical impulses, making it possible to transmit such impulses over a distance and then reconvert them into light.

Motor Car (late 19th Century)

With television, the car is probably the most widely used and most useful of all leisure-inspired inventions. German engineer Karl Benz produced the first petroldriven car in 1885 and the British motor industry started in 1896. Henry Ford was the first to use assembly line production for his Model Т car in 1908. Like them or hate them, cars have given people great freedom of travel.

Electricity

The name came from the Greek word for amber and was coined by Elizabeth I's physician William Gilbert who was among those who noticed that amber had the power to attract light objects after being rubbed. In the 19th century such great names as Michael Faraday, Humphry Davy, Alessandro Volta and Andre Marie Ampere all did vital work on electricity.

Photography (early 19th Century)

Leonardo da Vinci had described the camera obscura photographic principle as early as 1515. But it was not until 1835 that Frenchman Louis Daguerre produced camera photography. The system was gradually refined over the years, to the joy of happy snappers and the despair of those who had to wade through friends' endless holiday pictures.

Telephone (1876)

Edinburgh-born scientist Alexander Graham Bell patented his invention of the telephone in 1876. The following year, the great American inventor Thomas Edison produced the first working telephone. With telephones soon becoming rapidly available, the days of letter-writing became numbered.

Computer (20th Century)

The computer has been another life-transforming invention. British mathematician Charles Babbage designed a form of computer in the mid-1830s, but it was not until more than a century later that theory was put into practice. Now, a whole generation has grown up with calculators, windows, icons, computer games and word processors, and the Internet and e-mail have transformed communication and information.

Aeroplane

The plane was the invention that helped shrink the world and brought distant lands within easy reach of ordinary people. The invention of the petrol engine made flight feasible and the American Wright brothers made the first flight in 1903.

Extreme sports

Speed, excitement, danger. You can find all these in the different extreme sports that have become popular in last 10 years. Take bungee jumping. You jump off a bridge and you fall and fall, and then, just before you hit the ground or water, an elastic rope pulls you back. In skysurfing you jump out of aeroplane and use a board to "surf" the air, doing gymnastics in mid-air!

Winter sports have always an element of danger. For example snowboarding, which has all the excitement of surfing but on snow, is more dangerous even than skiing.

Probably the most dangerous of all the new winter sports is snowrafting. You sit in a rubber boat and sail down a mountain at great speed – and you can't control the boat!

Of course, water sports have always been fun. Ice diving, for those people who are absolutely crazy. You put on diving equipment and dive under a frozen lake. And, if that's not enough, you try to walk upside down on the ice! I feel cold just thinking about it.

A lot of people are not fit nowadays. It's a big problem today. If you want to feel fit you’d better go in for one kind of sport or another. I think that everyone must do all he can to be healthy. Good health is better than the best medicine. All kinds of physical exercises are very useful to make our bodies strong and to keep ourselves fit and healthy.

To tell the truth I don’t do sports regularly and it is not an essential part of my daily life. In the morning I do some exercises just to awake. In summer I go swimming as there is a beautiful lake with pure water where my Granny lives. In winter I swim in the swimming pool.

I shouldn’t call myself a sports fan. Of course, I like to watch sports competitions on TV, like hockey or football. Also I admire skiing championships, biathlon, swimming.

Sport in the USA

Americans' interest in sports seems excessive to many foreign visitors. Television networks spend millions of dollars arranging to telecast sports events. Publications about sports sell widely. In the US professional athletes can become national heroes.

Sports are associated with educational institutions in a way is unique. High schools have coaches as faculty members, and school teams compete with each other. Nowhere else in the world are sports associated with colleges and universities in the way they are in the States. College sports, especially football, are conducted in an atmosphere of intense excitement and pageantry. Games between teams attract nationwide television audiences. The sport that is most popular in most parts of the world - soccer - is not well known in the US. The most popular sports are American football and baseball, games that are not played in large number of countries. Sports play such an important role in American life that the sociology of sports, sports medicine, and sports psychology have become respectable specializations. Many Americans jog every day, or play tennis or bridge two or three times a week. They go on ski tri/ps and hunting expeditions that require weeks of planning and organizing. In the Americans' view, all these activities are worth the discomfort they may cause because they contribute to health and physical fitness. That is probably why Americans are known as a healthy nation.