Astronaut Jim Voss has enjoyed many memorable moments in his career, including three space flights and one space walk. But he recalls with special fondness a decidedly earthbound (为地球引力所束缚的) experience in the summer of 1980,when he participated in the NASA-ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program. Voss, then a science teacher at West Point, was assigned to the Marshall Space Flight Center's propulsion (推进) lab in Alabama to analyze why a hydraulic fuel pump seal on the space shuttle was working so well when previous seals had failed. It was a seemingly tiny problem among the vast complexities of running the space program. Yet it was important to NASA because any crack in the seals could have led to destructive results for the astronauts who relied on them. "I worked a bit with NASA engineers," says Voss, "but I did it mostly by analysis. I used a handheld calculator, not a computer, to do a thermodynamic (热力学) analysis." At the end of the summer, he, like the other NASA-ASEE fellows working at Marshall, summarized his findings in a formal presentation and detailed paper. It was a valuable moment for Voss because the ASEE program gave him added understanding of NASA, deepened his desire to fly in space, and intensified his application for astronaut status. It was not an easy process. Voss was actually passed over when he first applied for the astronaut program in 1978. Over the next nine years he reapplied repeatedly, and was finally accepted in 1987. Since then he has participated in three space missions. The 50 year-old Army officer, who lives in Houston, is now in training for a four-month mission as a crew member on the International Space Station starting in July 2000. Voss says the ASEE program is wonderful for all involved. "It brings in people from the academic world and gives NASA a special property for a particular period of time. It brings some fresh eyes and fresh ideas to NASA, and establishes a link with our colleges and universities," Voss explains. "There is an exchange of information and an exchange of perspectives that is very important." For the academic side, Voss says, the ASEE program also "brings institutions of higher learning more insight into new technology. We give them an opportunity to work on real-world problems and take it back to the classroom." Why was the hydraulic fuel pump seal important for the space shuttle?

Being somewhat short-sighted

On an average of six times a day

Writing in a straightforward as opposed to ______ style, the author produced ______ argument that shed new light on a controversial topic.

Directions: em>Write a 250-word composition about your point of view on Online Sharing Culture

The development of the English language falls into three reasonably ______ periods: Old English, Middle English, and Modern English.

As children get older

Heat exhaustion is a condition caused by______to sunlight or another heat source which often results in dehydration and salt depletion.

Retail sales volume in local urban and rural areas rose 57.8 percent ______ and 46.8 percent over March 2005.

She must have been pretty ______ to fall for such an old trick.

His sprained ankle ______ his chances of winning the tournament.

Forget what Virginia Woolf said about what a writer needs—a room of one's own. The writer she has in mind wasn't at work on a novel in cyberspace, one with multiple hypertexts, animated graphics and downloads of trance, charming music. For that you also need graphic interfaces, Real Player and maybe even a computer laboratory at Brown University. That was where Mark Amerika—his legally adopted name; don't ask him about his birth name—composed much of his novel em>Grammatron/em>. But em>Grammatron/em> isn't just a story. It's an online narrative (grammatron.com) that uses the capabilities of cyberspace to tie the conventional story line into complicated knots. In the four years it took to produce—it was completed in 1997—each new advance in computer software became another potential story device. "I became sort of dependent on the industry," jokes Amerika, who is also the author of two novels printed on paper. "That's unusual for a writer, because if you just write on paper the 'technology' is pretty stable." Nothing about em>Grammatron/em> is stable. At its center, if there is one, is Abe Golam, the inventor of nanograph a quasi-mystical computer code that some unmystical corporations are itching to acquire. For much of the story, Abe wanders through Prague-23, a virtual "city" in cyberspace where visitors indulge in fantasy encounters and virtual sex, which can get fairly graphic. The reader wanders too, because most of em>Gramrnatron/em>'s 1,000-plus text screens contain several passages in hypertext. To reach the next screen just double-click. But each of those hypertexts is a trapdoor that can plunge you down a different pathway of the story. Choose one and you drop into a corporate-strategy memo. Choose another and there's a XXX-rated sexual rant. The story you read is in some sense file story you make. Amerika teaches digital art at the University of Colorado, where his students develop works that straddle the lines between art, film and literature. "I tell them not to get caught up in mere plot," he says. Some avant-garde writers—Julio Cortazar, Italo Calvino—have also experimented with novels that wander out of their author's control. "But what makes the Net so exciting," says Amerika, "is that you can add sound, randomly generated links, 3-D modeling, animation." That room of one's own is turning into a fun house. The passage is mainly to tell ______.

The three men tried many times to sneak across the border into the neighboring country, ______ by the police each time.

With over 1

Mr

The day was breaking and people began to go to work so the murderer was unable to______of the body.

What will man be like in the future—in 5

Shoes of this kind are ______ to slip on wet ground.

Unless all staff members agree to ______ to the plan, there may be further changes in the course of action.