The latest achievements in industrial materials production in space

Use exercises 1, 2 and the following words and word combinations for your topic: carry out experiments; obtain useful and valuable data; on board a space ve­hicle; zero-gravity condition; zero-gravity state advantages, materials of better quality; at a larger scale; in case; according to.

Exercise 5. Read and smile.

The teacher was trying to explain the fundamentals of Science to her class. «Sir Isaak Newton was sitting under a tree looking up into it when an apple fell on his head, and from that he could dis­cover the law of gravity. Wasn't that wonderful?»

«Yes, it certainly was», a pupil said, «and if he had been at school at his books, he wouldn't have discovered anything».

A Trick on a President

W.H. Harrison was the ninth President of the United States. Like so many other early American presidents he was born in a small town. As a boy, he was extremely quiet. In fact, he was so quiet that he had the reputation of being very stupid (глупый). The town people therefore often used to play tricks (шутка) on him. For example, they would put a nickel and a dime (монеты в 5 и 10 центов) in front of him and tell him to take whichever one he wanted. He would always choose the nickel and they would laugh at him.

One day, a woman took pity (пожалеть) on him. She said: «William, why do you always choose the nickel instead (вместо) of a dime? Don't you know that a dime, though smaller in size than a nickel, is worth (стоить) much more than a nickel?» «Cer­tainly I know it», William answered. «But if I chose the dime, they wouldn't play the trick on me any more.»