2017考博英語(yǔ)閱讀題文章精選
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Colonising Mars: For life, not for an afterlife
殖民火星：為了現(xiàn)在而非后世
Seeking to make Earth expendable is not a good reason to settle other planets.
想方設(shè)法用盡地球資源不是人類移民到別的星球的好借口。
MARS has been much possessed by death. In the late 19th century Percival Lowell, an American astronomer, persuaded much of the public that the red planet was dying of desertification. H.G. Wells, in “The War of the Worlds”, imagined Martian invaders bringing death to Earth; in “The Martian Chronicles” Ray Bradbury pictured humans living among Martian ghosts seeing Earth destroyed in a nuclear spasm. Science was not much cheerier than science fiction: space probes revealed that having once been warmer and wetter, Mars is now cold, cratered and all-but-airless.
火星一直被死亡所籠罩。19世紀(jì)末期，美國(guó)天文學(xué)家PercivalLowell曾告訴大多數(shù)媒體說(shuō)，由于荒漠化，這個(gè)紅色的星球已經(jīng)瀕臨垂死的邊緣了。H.G. Wells在《星際戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)》中設(shè)想了火星入侵者將死亡帶向地球的故事;在《火星編年史》中，Ray Bradbury描繪了活在火星人鬼魂下的人們眼睜睜看著地球毀于核爆的畫面�？茖W(xué)現(xiàn)實(shí)并不比這些科幻小說(shuō)要樂觀多少：航天探測(cè)器顯示，火星曾經(jīng)溫暖而濕潤(rùn)，但現(xiàn)如今一片冷寂，到處都坑坑洼洼，空氣少得可憐。
persuade：v. 說(shuō)服，勸說(shuō)
invader：n. 侵略者
chronicle：n. 編年史，年代記;記錄
spasm：n. 一陣發(fā)作;
Perhaps that is why the dream of taking new life to Mars is such a stirring one. Elon Musk, anentrepreneur, has built a rocket company, SpaceX, from scratch in order to make this dream come true. On September 27th he outlined new plans for rockets that dwarf the Apolloprogramme’s Saturn V, and for spaceships with room for around 100 passengers that can be refuelled both in orbit and on Mars. Such infrastructure, he says, would eventually allow thousands of settlers to get there for $200,000 each—roughly the median cost of an American house. To deliver such marvels in a decade or so is an order tall enough to reach halfway to orbit itself (see article). But as a vision, its ambition enthralls.
也許這就是為什么將新生命帶到火星上的夢(mèng)想會(huì)如此的激動(dòng)人心的原因吧。一位名為Elon Musk的企業(yè)家白手起家創(chuàng)辦了火箭公司SpaceX。他創(chuàng)建這家公司的目的就是為了實(shí)現(xiàn)這個(gè)夢(mèng)想。九月二十七日，Elon Musk簡(jiǎn)述了火箭公司的新計(jì)劃。此計(jì)劃準(zhǔn)備建造一些比阿波羅探月計(jì)劃下土星-5號(hào)運(yùn)載火箭還要高級(jí)的火箭和一個(gè)載客量為100名，并且能夠在軌道和火星上補(bǔ)充燃料的宇宙飛船。他表示，最終這些設(shè)施將可以把上千名移民送上火星。每名乘客只需花費(fèi)二十萬(wàn)美元——大概相當(dāng)于美國(guó)人買一套中等房子的價(jià)錢。如果能在大概十年內(nèi)完成這樣的奇跡，那么接近離火星軌道的路程就相當(dāng)于走了一半了(見文章)。不過就一種愿景而言，它的目標(biāo)還是很吸引人的。
stirring：adj. 激動(dòng)人心的
entrepreneur：n. 企業(yè)家
outline：vt. 概述
Apollo：n. 阿波羅(太陽(yáng)神);美男子
orbit：n. 軌道
infrastructure：n. 基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施;
How odd, then, that Mr Musk’s motivation is born in part of a fear as misplaced as it is striking. He portrays a Mars colony as a hedge against Earth-bound extinction. Science-fiction fans have long been familiar with this sort of angst about existential risks—in the 1950s Arthur C. Clarke told them that, confined to Earth “humanity had too many eggs in one rather fragile basket.” Others agree. Stephen Hawking, a noted physicist, is one of those given to such fits of the collywobbles. If humans stick to a single planet, he warns, they will be sitting ducks for a supervirus, a malevolent artificial intelligence or a nuclear war that could finish off the whole lot of them at any time.
然而奇怪的是起初Musk先生的這一動(dòng)機(jī)一半源自于恐懼，這即放錯(cuò)了地方又顯得不同尋常。他把火星描繪成了地球滅絕的殖民地。 科幻迷們?cè)缫蚜私饬诉@種生存的擔(dān)憂——早在從20世紀(jì)五十年代的Arthur C. Clarke就告訴他們?nèi)祟惏炎约航d在地球上，就是把“人類的`雞蛋都放在同一個(gè)易碎的籃子里”。其他人也同意這個(gè)說(shuō)法。著名的物理學(xué)家史蒂芬霍金也是這種說(shuō)法的支持者。他警告說(shuō)，要是人類堅(jiān)持在一個(gè)星球上生存的話，就會(huì)很容易成為一種超級(jí)病毒、一個(gè)險(xiǎn)惡用心的人工智能，或是核戰(zhàn)的攻擊目標(biāo)，隨時(shí)可能全軍覆沒。
collywobbles ：n. 肚子疼;急性腹瀉
malevolent：adj. 惡毒的;有惡意的;壞心腸的
Claptrap. It is true that, in the long run, Earth will become uninhabitable. But that long run is about a billion years. To concern oneself with such eventualities is to take an aversion to short-termism beyond the salutary.(讀者試譯) (For comparison, a billion years ago the most complex creature on the planet was a very simple seaweed.) Yes, a natural or maliciouslydesigned pandemic might kill billions. So might a nuclear war; at a pinch climate change might wreak similar havoc. But extinction is more than just unprecedented mass mortality; it requires getting rid of everyone. Neither diseases nor wars do that.
聽起來(lái)這都是嘩眾取寵。但是長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)來(lái)看，事實(shí)的真相是，終有一天地球會(huì)變得不適合人類居住，但這幾億年后才會(huì)發(fā)生。(期待您的翻譯。)(十億年前這個(gè)星球上最復(fù)雜的生物也僅是那些結(jié)構(gòu)非常單一的海藻而已)。是的，自然或用心險(xiǎn)惡的瘟疫可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致數(shù)十億人死亡。不光是這，一場(chǎng)核戰(zhàn)和輕微的氣候變化也有可能造成同樣的后果。但是前所未有的大規(guī)模死亡并不意味著人類的滅絕，滅絕人類的話需要?dú)⒐馑械娜�。這不是疾病或戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)就能辦到的。
claptrap：n. 嘩眾取寵的話
aversion：n. 厭惡
salutary：adj. 有益的，有用的;有益健康的
maliciously：adv. 有敵意地，惡意地
pinch：n. 匱乏;少量;夾痛
havoc：n. 大破壞;浩劫;蹂躪
otherworldly concerns來(lái)世的煩惱
An asteroid as big as the one that dispatched the dinosaurs might take out the whole species, but humans have had the foresight to catalogue the asteroids up to the task and none is coming close in the foreseeable future. So the chance of earthly extinction from any known cause in the next few centuries is remarkably low. As for the unknown—an evil AI, or predatory aliens with intellects as “vast and cool and unsympathetic” as those of Wells’s Martians, or the good old-fashioned wrath of God—why would they wipe humans from the face of one planet while leaving those on the rock next door in peace?
一個(gè)和當(dāng)年致使恐龍滅絕的同樣大小的小行星，就有可能導(dǎo)致人類滅絕。但是人類是有遠(yuǎn)見的。我們已經(jīng)特意把小行星編輯造冊(cè)，并且在可預(yù)見的未來(lái)沒有一顆小行星會(huì)駛近地球。所以在接下來(lái)幾個(gè)世紀(jì)中，地球由于已知原因滅絕的可能性微乎其微。說(shuō)回那些未知的因素——邪惡的人工智能，或是如同威爾斯的火星人一樣“龐大、冷酷、無(wú)情”的智能外星侵略者，或者是舊時(shí)說(shuō)的上帝的憤怒——為什么他們要將人類從地球上抹去，而不去動(dòng)相鄰巖石星球上的人呢?
asteroid：n. [天] 小行星
If worrying about imminent extinction is unrealistic, trying to hide from it is ignoble. At the margins, it is better that the best and brightest share Earth’s risks than have a way to run away from them. Dream of Mars, by all means, but do so in a spirit of hope for new life, not fear of death.
如果說(shuō)擔(dān)心即將來(lái)臨的滅頂之災(zāi)是不切實(shí)際的想法，那么嘗試去掩蓋這一事實(shí)就是不光彩的行為。與逃避這一事實(shí)相比，最上乘的做法是想辦法分擔(dān)地球的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。無(wú)論如何，火星之夢(mèng)當(dāng)然可以有，但是請(qǐng)從創(chuàng)造美好新生活的精神出發(fā)，而不是畏懼死亡。
imminent：adj. 即將來(lái)臨的
hide：vi. 隱藏
ignoble：adj. 不光彩的;卑鄙的;卑賤的
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