2017考博英語閱讀題文章精選
導語：對于整體提高英語水平，閱讀積累必不可少，讀更多文章,積累的更多單詞。下面是小編帶來的英語資料，希望對您有所幫助。
Colonising Mars: For life, not for an afterlife
殖民火星：為了現在而非后世
Seeking to make Earth expendable is not a good reason to settle other planets.
想方設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世紀末期，美國天文學家PercivalLowell曾告訴大多數媒體說，由于荒漠化，這個紅色的星球已經瀕臨垂死的邊緣了。H.G. Wells在《星際戰爭》中設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現實并不比這些科幻小說要樂觀多少：航天探測器顯示，火星曾經溫暖而濕潤，但現如今一片冷寂，到處都坑坑洼洼，空氣少得可憐。
persuade：v. 說服，勸說
invader：n. 侵略者
chronicle：n. 編年史，年代記;記錄
spasm：n. 一陣發作;
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想會如此的激動人心的原因吧。一位名為Elon Musk的企業家白手起家創辦了火箭公司SpaceX。他創建這家公司的目的就是為了實現這個夢想。九月二十七日，Elon Musk簡述了火箭公司的新計劃。此計劃準備建造一些比阿波羅探月計劃下土星-5號運載火箭還要高級的火箭和一個載客量為100名，并且能夠在軌道和火星上補充燃料的宇宙飛船。他表示，最終這些設施將可以把上千名移民送上火星。每名乘客只需花費二十萬美元——大概相當于美國人買一套中等房子的價錢。如果能在大概十年內完成這樣的奇跡，那么接近離火星軌道的路程就相當于走了一半了(見文章)。不過就一種愿景而言，它的目標還是很吸引人的。
stirring：adj. 激動人心的
entrepreneur：n. 企業家
outline：vt. 概述
Apollo：n. 阿波羅(太陽神);美男子
orbit：n. 軌道
infrastructure：n. 基礎設施;
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先生的這一動機一半源自于恐懼，這即放錯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。 科幻迷們早已了解了這種生存的擔憂——早在從20世紀五十年代的Arthur C. Clarke就告訴他們人類把自己禁錮在地球上，就是把“人類的`雞蛋都放在同一個易碎的籃子里”。其他人也同意這個說法。著名的物理學家史蒂芬霍金也是這種說法的支持者。他警告說，要是人類堅持在一個星球上生存的話，就會很容易成為一種超級病毒、一個險惡用心的人工智能，或是核戰的攻擊目標，隨時可能全軍覆沒。
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.
聽起來這都是嘩眾取寵。但是長遠來看，事實的真相是，終有一天地球會變得不適合人類居住，但這幾億年后才會發生。(期待您的翻譯。)(十億年前這個星球上最復雜的生物也僅是那些結構非常單一的海藻而已)。是的，自然或用心險惡的瘟疫可能會導致數十億人死亡。不光是這，一場核戰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模死亡并不意味著人類的滅絕，滅絕人類的話需要殺光所有的人。這不是疾病或戰爭就能辦到的。
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?
一個和當年致使恐龍滅絕的同樣大小的小行星，就有可能導致人類滅絕。但是人類是有遠見的。我們已經特意把小行星編輯造冊，并且在可預見的未來沒有一顆小行星會駛近地球。所以在接下來幾個世紀中，地球由于已知原因滅絕的可能性微乎其微。說回那些未知的因素——邪惡的人工智能，或是如同威爾斯的火星人一樣“龐大、冷酷、無情”的智能外星侵略者，或者是舊時說的上帝的憤怒——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.
如果說擔心即將來臨的滅頂之災是不切實際的想法，那么嘗試去掩蓋這一事實就是不光彩的行為。與逃避這一事實相比，最上乘的做法是想辦法分擔地球的風險。無論如何，火星之夢當然可以有，但是請從創造美好新生活的精神出發，而不是畏懼死亡。
imminent：adj. 即將來臨的
hide：vi. 隱藏
ignoble：adj. 不光彩的;卑鄙的;卑賤的
【2017考博英語閱讀題文章精選】相關文章：
相約花博作文04-24
暢游花博作文04-24
花博園作文04-13
世博游記作文09-10
園博園游記作文09-10
有關寫中秋博餅的作文12-15
綠博園觀后感范文04-22
游花博園作文(3篇)02-04
花博一日游作文04-30
【精選】閱讀伴我成長作文3篇04-21