英语听力：探索发现 科学新发现：我们的大气层-3

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

 

30 minutes after take-off, Kittinger reaches 29,000 feet, the middle of the troposphere. At this altitude, the air is so thin that each breath contains only a third of the oxygen found at sea level. Kittinger breathes from gas bottles connected to his sealed helmet. He’s still barely² a third of the way to the jump-point. 

 

There are another 14 miles to go. And the air pressure is dropping rapidly. So at about forty thousand feet, suddenly the pressure suit starts inflating³ and that’s when you start checking it to make certain that it’s working properly. 

 

But there is a crucial fault in the suit. The glove covering this right hand is not sealed. 

 

I had an option to tell the ground that I had a problem. And I knew that if I did, they’d probably make me abort⁴ the flight and I was concerned that if we had to abort that flight, then we would have been turned down to try to do it again. So I didn’t tell them.

 

Kittinger prays that this is an isolated⁵ fault and continues to climb at 1000 feet per minute. After 89 minutes, he approaches his target altitude. The balloon’s climb slows and then stalls⁶.

分享到：