One day you may be able to travel from Earth into space and back easily. The most ambitious and versatile spacecraft ever built, Columbia will orbit at speeds up to 28,000 km/h fuelled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The space shuttle has a huge cargo hold, twenty metres long, which would enable it to carry a laboratory into space together with the scientists and technicians needed to work in it, or it could be used to carry satellites into space. Its creators think it will have many uses such as making surveys of the Earth and oceans, looking for mineral deposits, studying the weather etC、One of the early projects that the shuttle will be involved in is the placing in orbit of a giant telescope that will be able to see seven times further than the world’s most powerful instruments. This is because it will be outside the dusty atmosphere that surrounds the Earth. The first test-firing of its engines was a tense moment. The crew remember how they gasped when they first saw the giant shuttle rolling to its lift-off site on a gigantic crawler-tractor. It took 7.5 hours to creep the 5.5 kilometres from the Kennedy Space Centre! Then came to the count-down and millions of Americans watching on television joined all the technicians and scientists in the Cape Canaveral control tower in a sigh of relief when someone announced “all engines are up and running”. This meant that all had gone well and the red and the orange flames flaring out from beneath Columbia and the immense cloud of steam created by burning liquid oxygen and hydrogen were emblems of America’s success. Unlike ordinary rockets that can be sent into space for testing without astronauts on board, the space shuttle had to have a crew on its very first flight or it could not have been used again. So everything had to be checked and double-checked on the ground and those in charge had to be absolutely certain that nothing would go wrong. It was a very worrying time for everyone, and everyone involved breathed a huge sigh of relief when the first lift-off in April 1981, was followed two days later by a perfect landing. A new chapter in the space age had begun. For man could now rocket into space -------and then fly back to Earth. (391 words) 1. Columbia will have all the following uses in the space EXCEPT________. A、making surveys of the space B、looking for mineral deposits C、studying the weather D、helping to orbit a giant telescope 2. What was the function of the “gigantic crawler-tractor”? A、To help the space shuttle to lift off B、To take the space shuttle to the launching-pad C、To take the space shuttle to Kennedy Space Centre D、To launch the space shuttle into the space 3. How important is Columbia to space exploration?