[ti:NASA Preparing Moon Water Exploration Mission] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]The U.S. space agency NASA has set a goal to return humans to the moon by 2024. [00:10.52]As part of preparations NASA plans to send exploration vehicles to the moon [00:17.59]to examine the planet's huge water supply. [00:23.12]The effort will follow up on a 2009 mission [00:27.38]that confirmed the presence of water beneath the moon's surface. [00:34.36]That mission, called LCROSS, sent a rocket crashing into the moon's south pole. [00:42.84]The crash sent debris flying from the moon's surface [00:47.63]and identified a large collection of water ice. [00:53.80]LCROSS was a major development in discovering this important resource on the moon. [01:02.80]NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called the LCROSS mission "a game changer." [01:12.16]He said the U.S. "should have immediately as a nation [01:17.00]changed our direction to the moon so we could figure out how to use it." [01:24.24]He spoke with Reuters news agency. [01:27.88]Bridenstine said the moon holds billions of tons of water ice. [01:35.88]Experts have said the exact amount of water on the moon is not known. [01:42.76]They have also said it is unclear whether the water [01:46.90]is present in large pieces of ice or combined with moon soil. [01:54.40]So to learn more, NASA is working with a few companies [01:59.08]to put exploratory vehicles on the moon's surface by 2022. [02:06.92]Jack Burns is the director of the Network for Exploration and Space Science [02:13.48]at the University of Colorado. [02:17.84]He told Reuters it is important for such vehicles to get to the moon. [02:24.96]They will be able to search for water, drill into the surface, [02:29.96]and attempt to find ways to bring the water out. [02:35.40]Scientists say the water could be very useful in future activities on the moon. [02:43.40]For example, they believe it may be possible to one day [02:48.18]break down the water into its two main parts, hydrogen and oxygen. [02:55.60]This could possibly be used to provide fuel for missions to deeper parts of the solar system. [03:04.68]Tony Colaprete was one of the main investigators for the LCROSS mission. [03:11.64]He told Reuters that in the final weeks before the launch, [03:15.76]the project experienced "a bad rush to the finish line." [03:21.88]"We wanted to make as large of a hole as possible [03:25.52]to get as many materials out of the shadows and into the sunlight," Colaprete said. [03:33.52]He said the fast-moving mission used some technology [03:37.76]that had never been used in space before. [03:42.44]Colaprete added that the current moon program is also "forcing some cultural changes" at NASA. [03:51.96]The U.S. space agency has experienced a series of high-level leadership changes [03:58.28]and delays in the agency's commercial crew program. [04:03.92]That program aims to return U.S. human spaceflight for the first time since 2011. [04:12.88]Colaprete said in his opinion, "people are coming together in a way like they did on LCROSS." [04:22.48]I'm Bryan Lynn. [04:24.30]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM