Notes:
astronaut 宇宙飛行士;
paper spring 紙バネ;
wire top 針金ゴマ
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On Sunday, Kanai Norishige became the 12th Japanese astronaut to go up into space. He went up in a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan. Two other astronauts joined him, Anton Shkaplerov of Russia and Scott Tingle of the U.S.A. They are all heading to the International Space Station and will get there sometime today. This time, Kanai will do two experiments that were designed by high school students. One is to see how a paper spring works in almost zero gravity. The other is to see how a wire top spins. I hope they will take a video and show us what happens later! (by Prof. Douglas Jarrell)
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Japan Airlines thinks we will want to fly faster in the future, so it is putting its money on a supersonic airplane. That’s an airplane that flies faster than the speed of sound. There used to be supersonic airplanes. France and Britain produced the Concorde, a beautifully designed airplane with a nose that pointed down. It was fast but very expensive. It could fly over the ocean, but the noise over land was too loud. The Concorde stopped flying in 2003. Now JAL is investing in a company called Boom which will build new planes. People will again be able to fly long distances in half the time. (by Prof. Douglas Jarrell)
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