THE HISTORY OF LIVING IN SPACE

    Space travel is nothing new. The first spacecraft with a human on board blasted into space In 1961. since then, people have not only been travelling to space, but many of them have also lived there for extended periods.

Food

    All the meals on space stations are put together on Earth and sent to the space station, along with the astronauts, by space shuttle. Because the food has to last a long time (sometimes up to three months), a lot of it has to be preserved by dehydration or canning.

    The space station does not have a freezer to preserve food, but It does have a cool room to keep fruit and vegetables fresh.

Astronauts also eat many other foods such as cereals, cereal bars, nuts and dried fruit that do not need any special preparation.

    Eating

    Astronauts have a set timetable each day. This tells them when to do everything, including when to have their meals. At meal preparation time, they start getting their food ready, which often includes adding water to re-hydrate the dehydrated foods.

    Without the help of gravity, sitting down to eat can be tricky. Astronauts sometimes have to strap themselves and their food into place. Because of lack of gravity, astronauts cannot use ground salt and pepper, and all drinks must be taken from bottles. They also have to be careful that crumbs do not fly off and get stuck in vents and instrument panels.

    In the Charles E. Johnson Elementary School in New York, there is a special radio. It gives people warnings (警报) about bad weather.

    One day, there came a sound from the radio. This sound brought the piece of news: a heavy storm was coming. William Tomic, principal (校长) of the school, he asked teachers to bring children indoors and put them in a safe place at once.

    Minutes later, the storm came. However, because of the warning of the radio and the quick work of the principal, no one was hurt. “The radio really did work very well. 我们对它的工作感到很高兴,” William Tomic said. “The parents were as well.” The US government hopes there will be more such success stories. It plans to give this kind of radios to all 97, 000 public schools in the country.

    Every year, more than 10,000 big thunderstorms, 2,500 floods, 1,000 tomatoes (龙卷风) and some hurricanes (飓风) take place in the US, so the warning radios are very useful.

    They not only give people warnings about bad weather, but also give warnings about other dangerous things.

    When you go for a run outside, chances are that you'll find litter (垃圾) all around you. Do you just go past it, or do you stop and pick it up? If you choose the second, you're part of the latest popular sport in the West: plogging.

    The word "plogging" puts the Swedish phrase "plocka upp" (pick up) and the English word "jogging" (running slowly) together.

    What a plogger needs is a rubbish bag and a pair of gloves (手套)to protect your hands. While collecting rubbish, ploggers learn to classify (分类) and deal with it correctly, too.

    ①Plogging seems simple but it does a lot of good to both the environment'(环境) and your health. It can not only make the world greener, but also get you exercise, for example, a 30-minute plogging burns around 288 calories (卡路里),compared to 235 calories burned from just jogging.

    So next time you go out jogging, why not carry a rubbish bag and collect some litter along the way?②你的身体和环境会感谢你。

    Every month, junior high schools in China choose one hero of the month. This person is a hero because he or she has done something to help protect animals in danger. Huang Jing decided to write a letter to the President of China.

Dear Mr President.

    I have been doing a project at school recently about animals in danger. I think the situation all over the world is really terrible. I am writing to you to suggest what China should do to help protect animals more.

    I know that there are nearly 2, 000 nature reserves in China, which is good. I live in Beijing and there are about 30 reserves outside the city. We visited one of them last month to sec for ourselves.

    I feel so sorry for the giant panda. It's one of the most popular animals in the world and a real symbol of China. We learned that pandas mainly live on bamboo, and that a panda can eat half its body weight of bamboo in 24 hours！That's a lot of bamboo. I think we should try to do more to stop cutting down forests. Pandas are already a rare animal and it would be so sad if they became extinct(灭绝)forever.

    The other animal we should try to protect more is the Chinese alligator(场子努). These creatures live in some parts of eastern China. These beautiful animals live in freshwater rivers and lakes but the water in some places isn't clean enough for them to live in. It's really dirty in fact. The government should stop factories polluting the lakes and rivers.

    If we protect these beautiful animals in China, more foreigners may wish to visit China to see them. They could be an important tourist attraction. It would be good if more people came to visit our beautiful country, especially to see the quieter areas in the country. Now most visitors just see the cities.

    I hope you will encourage more people to think about such an important subject.

Sincerely yours,

Huang Jing