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III. Make up your own sentences with the phrases and words listed above.



IV. Make up a dialogue. Your partner is one of the Wright brothers (Wilbur or Orville) who is telling about their invention and you are a French journalist who is interviewing him.

 

 

Text 4. FROM THE HISTORY OF AVIATION

Men have wanted to fly for more than two thousand years. Observations of flying birds gave man the idea of human flight. Every nation has many legends and tales about birdmen and magic carpets.

One of the most famous Greek legend is the legend of Daedalus and his son Icarus who made wings and fastened them on with wax. Daedalus landed in safety, Icarus was not so careful and he flew closer and closer to the sun. The wax melted, the wings came off and he fell into the sea.

The first scientific principles of human flight appeared in the 14-th century. The problem was studied by the great scientist Leonardo de Vinci. He observed the flight of birds, studied the air and its currents and designed a flying machine the wings of which were operated by a man.

But the first actual flight which man made was that in the balloon. In October 1783 the Montgolfier brothers in France sent two men almost 25 metres up in a balloon which descended 10 minutes later, about 2.5 kilometres away.

The first Russian aircraft designer was Alexander Mozhaisky. His airplane, a monoplane, with two light steam engines was tested on August I, 1882. With the first Russian pilot, I.N. Golubev the plane rose into the air and flew a distance of 200 metres before it landed.

At that time the same work was being conducted by Otto Lilienthal, a remarkable German inventor. In 1891 he made his flight in a glider covering 35 metres. In 1903 two Americans, the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, built their aeroplane. It flew only 32 metres but it was the first aeroplane with an internal combustion engine that was a big step forward.

In the following years aviation made big advances. In 1908 Henry Farman, in France, made a circular flight of one kilometre. A year later Bleriot crossed the English Channel. In 1913 a Russian student Lobanov invented aeroplane skis and this enabled to land and take off in winter.

In 1913 the Russian designer Igor Sikorsky built the world's first multiengined heavy aircraft. That same year the Russian pilot Nesterov executed the first loop. Another Russian pilot, Artseulov, in 1916 proved that a pilot can take his plane out of a corkscrew.

At the beginning of the 20-th century the dirigible was invented. The most known inventor of a dirigible is Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a retired German army officer. His famous " Graf Zeppelin" in 1929 began a cruise which took 21 days 8 hours and 26 minutes to circle the world.

An outstanding event in the history of aviation took place in Petersburg in 1913. That year a heavy multiengined aeroplane " Russky Vityaz» was constructed. It weighed 4, 940 kg and had a 1, 440 kg useful load. On August 2, 1913 with seven passengers on board it set up a world record by remaining in the air for 1 hour 34 minutes. Its top speed was over 90 km/hr.

In 1914 an improved version of the multiengined heavy bomber of the Ilya Murometz type was built. It weighed 3, 000 kg and had a 1, 760 kg useful load, a maximum cruising range of 700 km and a top speed of more than 110 km/hr.

Among the pioneers of aviation are the names of aircraft designers Tupolev, Polikarpov, Sukhoi, Arkhangelsky, Ilyushin, Yakovlev and others; the pilots Vodopyanov, Doronin, Kamanin, Lyapidevsky and some others - the first Heroes of the Soviet Union who were awarded this title for saving the passengers and the crew after ice-breaker Chelyuskin had been crashed by ice. In 1937 the world applauded the daring non-stop flight by Chkalov and his crew to the USA via the North Pole on the ANT-23. In 1938 Soviet aviatrixes Grisodubova, Raskova and Osipenko made a non-stop long-distance flight to the Far East and became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union among women.

And, of course, it is necessary to mention the names of the outstanding Russian scientists who considerably contributed aviation. It is the great Russian scientist M.V.Lomonosov who developed the scientific principles of flight of bodies heavier-than-air and built the first helicopter model in the world.

The Great Russian scientist D.I.Mendeleyev is the author of man outstanding researches in aeronautics. He developed the principles of the stratostat design with a pressurized cabin.

S.A.Chaplygin, the outstanding scientist in mechanics, is one of the founders of the modern aviation theory and the pioneer in aerodynamics of high speeds.

Special services in science belong to another famous scientist who is called " father of Russian aviation". And this is N.E.Zhukovsky. He was the first to develop a scientific wing theory and the principles of airscrew design. From that time aerodynamics has been a science combining theoretical knowledge with practical experiments. All modern aerodynamical calculations are based on his outstanding theoretical works.

N.E.Zhukovsky is the founder of the Central Aero-Hydrodynamic Institute (Z.A.G.I) which became the leading centre of the aeronautics and aeronautical engineering.

The rapid development of aviation began after the World War II. But this is another story.

 

 

Exercises

 

I. Ответьте на вопросы:

 

  1. Was it interesting for you to read this text?
  2. Did you read about the history of aviation at school?
  3. When did the first scientific principles of human flight appear?
  4. Who was the first to study the problem of human flight?
  5. Describe the flying machine designed by Leonardo de Vinchi.
  6. What was the first actual flight man made?
  7. Why was it impossible to fly in a balloon?
  8. Who was the first Russian aeroplane designer?
  9. What plane was designed by him?
  10. What distance did the plane cover?
  11. Who designed the first glider?
  12. What is glider?
  13. What event took place in Petersburg in 1913?
  14. How long did “Russky Vityaz” stay in the air?
  15. Who is called “the father of Russian aviation”?

 

II. Переведите слова, обращая внимание на словообразующие элементы:

observe – observer – observation

safe – safely – safety – unsafe

science – scientist – scientific

design – designer

fly – flight

invent – inventor – invention

construct – constructor – construction

improve – improvement

weigh – weight - weightless

develop – development

 

III. Найдите в тексте эквивалент следующим словосочетаниям:

 

полет человека, поток воздуха, конструктор самолета, конструкция крыла, модель вертолета, мировой рекорд, максимальная скорость, беспосадочный полет, паровой двигатель, лыжи самолета.

 

IV. Переведите на английский язык:

 

  1. Научные принципы полета человека изучались великим ученым Леонардо де Винчи.
  2. Леонардо де Винчи изучал потоки воздуха и создал первую летающую машину.
  3. Первый фактический полет был сделан на воздушном шаре в 1783 г.
  4. Этот полет длился только 10 минут и высота полета была 25 метров.
  5. Первым русским конструктором самолета был Александр Можайский.
  6. Он сконструировал моноплан с двумя паровыми двигателями в 1882 году.
  7. Большим шагом вперед было создание первого самолета с двигателем внутреннего сгорания, сконструированного двумя американцами, братьями Райт.
  8. Ученые и конструкторы многих стран работали над созданием и совершенствованием летательных аппаратов.
  9. Первый в мире многомоторный самолет был сконструирован русским конструктором Игорем Сикорским.
  10. В начале 20го столетия был изобретен дирижабль.
  11. В 1913 г. в Петербурге был сконструирован тяжелый многомоторный самолет «Русский витязь».
  12. Полет «Русского Витязя» продолжался 1 час 34 минуты, его скорость была 90 км/час.
  13. В 1937 году русский летчик Чкалов со своим экипажем совершил беспосадочный полет в США через Северный полюс.
  14. Ломоносов построил модель первого вертолета.
  15. Менделеев разработал конструкцию стратостата с герметизированной кабиной.

 

Unit II. Famous Russian design bureaus and outstanding constructors

Text 1. Energia

 

Energia is also called RKK Energia formerly OKB-1 Russian aerospace company that is a major producer of spacecraft, launch vehicles, rocket stages, and missiles. It built the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile and the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, and pioneered the development and operation of Soviet space stations including the Salyut series and Mir. Its headquarters are in the Moscow suburb of Korolev (formerly Kaliningrad).

Energia serves as a main contractor for the International Space Station (ISS). It provided the service module Zvezda, the station's control centre and living quarters during the initial stage of human occupancy. Other primary products include the Block DM upper stage and the Yamal communications satellite system. The company, which employs more than 20, 000 people, comprises a main design bureau and subordinate enterprises including an experimental plant in Korolev, the Volga design bureau in Samara, and the Primorsk Scientific-Technological Center. It also maintains a branch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch centre in Kazakhstan.

Energia's history is closely tied to the career of rocket designer Sergey P. Korolyov, widely recognized as the founder of the Soviet space program and its guiding genius until his death in 1966. The company traces its origin to a May 1946 decree that established the Soviet Union's missile and space programs. Under the watchful eye of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, the Soviet armaments industry founded NII-88 (Scientific-Research Institute 88) in Kaliningrad to direct all work on long-range missiles. Assigned to lead Department 3, one of several departments within the institute, was Korolyov, who had studied aeronautical engineering under the aircraft designer Andrey N. Tupolev and helped develop the Soviet Union's first liquid-propellant rockets in the early 1930s.

Korolyov's department was initially assigned to build improved versions of the German V-2 missile, but by the early 1950s it began to develop its own ballistic missiles including the R-2 (U.S. Department of Defense code name SS-2) and R-5M (SS-3). In 1950 the department was upgraded to an experimental design bureau (OKB), and in 1956 it formally separated from NII-88 and became the independent OKB-1.

The most important work of the design bureau in the 1950s was the creation of the R-7 (SS-6), the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, which was successfully launched in August 1957. Two months later, on October 4, a modified R-7 placed the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into Earth orbit, inaugurating the space era. Korolyov was the primary force behind the launch, having convinced a reluctant Soviet leadership to fund the effort. Over the next decade his design bureau was responsible for establishing the U.S.S.R.'s commanding early lead in the space race with the United States. Its successes included the launches of the first probes—Luna 2 and 3—to reach the Moon, in 1959; the Vostok spacecraft that carried the first human—Yury A. Gagarin—into space in 1961 and the first woman—Valentina Tereshkova—into space in 1963; the Voskhod spacecraft in which Vladimir M. Komarov, Konstantin P. Feoktistov, and Boris B. Yegorov conducted the first multiperson spaceflight in 1964 and from which Aleksey A. Leonov took the first space walk in 1965; and the first spacecraft—Venera 3—to impact on another planet (Venus), in 1965.

The organization's most expensive space project in the 1960s was the secret N1-L3 program, designed to compete with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Apollo program to land humans on the Moon. The same year, the government created the NPO Energia (Scientific and Production Association Energia) conglomerate, with the former OKB-1 at its centre, to play a leading role in the Soviet piloted space program. In the 1970s and '80s, Energia was the prime contractor for the development of the Energia-Buran reusable space system, a combination of launch vehicle (Energia) and winged orbiter (Buran). Despite two successful launches—one of the launch vehicle in 1987 and another of the entire system, including an unmanned, fully automated orbiting and landing of the Buran orbiter, in 1988—funding for the program was canceled in the early 1990s due to severe financial problems accompanying the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

 

Energia's other main work during the 1970s and early '80s focused on the Soviet Union's early generation of space stations, a series of seven spacecraft called Salyut. In 1971 it built and launched its first Salyut, the world's first space station. After recovering from a spate of failures, Energia mounted an unprecedented run of successful missions to the advanced Salyut 6 and 7 stations beginning in the late 1970s. These stations were supplied by improved versions of Soyuz ferry spacecraft and Progress unmanned cargo tankers. A total of 26 crews, including several international ones, visited the two stations, setting consecutive records for endurance in space.

In 1986 Energia launched the core module for the Mir space station, which it subsequently expanded with a series of science and service modules. For 10 years, from 1989 to 1999, the firm kept the station continuously manned, an unequalled achievement. Building on its experience with Mir, Energia signed on in the early 1990s as the main contractor for the Russian portion of the ISS. Its role, however, was gradually reduced, owing partly to stiff competition from another Russian company, Khrunichev, which assumed responsibility for the design and manufacture of a number of ISS modules. In April 1994 Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed an order renaming the firm RKK Energia (Rocket-Space Corporation Energia) and partially privatizing the company.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Energia vigorously pursued international cooperative efforts. Successful ventures included partnerships with Sea Launch and International Launch Services, two multinational satellite launching services to which Energia provided its Block DM upper stage for boosting payloads to geostationary orbit. The company achieved some notoriety in the late 1990s when it sought commercial customers for Mir in order to keep its single most important asset in operation. Continued financial support did not materialize, however, and Energia disposed of Mir in a guided reentry in 2001.

 

 

Vocabulary:

  1. launch vehicle – ракета-носитель;
  2. artificial – искусственный;
  3. contractor – подрядчик, поставщик, снабженец;
  4. living quarters - жилое помещение;
  5. initial stage - начальная стадия;
  6. human occupancy – населённость (временное жильё);
  7. to comprise – включать, заключать в себе, содержать;
  8. to subordinate – подчинять, ставить в зависимость;
  9. to maintain – поддерживать, обслуживать, содержать;
  10. trace - след, отпечаток, признак;
  11. decree - декрет, директива, постановление, решение;
  12. а watchful eye – “недремлющее око”; чуткое руководство
  13. armament – военное оборудование;
  14. to assign - назначать, определять, устанавливать;
  15. aeronautical engineering - авиационное проектирование и строительство; авиационная техника; авиационное машиностроение;
  16. code name - кодовое название, наименование;
  17. to upgrade - улучшать, модернизировать, совершенствовать;
  18. to inaugurate – ознаменовывать, служить символом начала (чего-л.);
  19. to convince – убеждать;
  20. reluctant – неохотный;
  21. to impact - воздействовать, влиять;
  22. to cancel – аннулировать, отменять;
  23. to accompany – сопровождать, следовать;
  24. dissolution – распад;
  25. ferry spacecraft - транспортный КА;
  26. cargo – груз;
  27. consecutive – последовательный, консекутивный, (непрерывно) следующий друг за другом;
  28. endurance – выносливость;
  29. core module - основной модуль;
  30. unequalled – бесподобный, несравненный, непревзойдённый;
  31. subsequently - впоследствии, позднее, позже, после, потом;
  32. to assume - принимать, брать на себя (ответственность, управление);
  33. vigorously - решительно, сильно, энергично;
  34. to pursue - преследовать (цель), следовать намеченному курсу;
  35. venture – предприятие, дело;
  36. notoriety – общеизвестность, слава;
  37. asset - ценное, полезное качество;
  38. to dispose - отдавать, передавать;

 

 

I. Answer the following questions:

  1. Why is Energia's history closely tied to the career of Sergey Korolyov?
  2. What was the aim of the most expensive space project in the 1960s? Why do you think it was a secret?
  3. When was the world's first space station built and launched? How was it called?
  4. What is the Khrunichev company responsible for?
  5. Why did Energia vigorously pursue international cooperative efforts after the dissolution of the Soviet Union?

 

 


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