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随身英语Women in space 太空女性 虽然女性已经探索太空多年，但登上太空的男性人数仍高于女性。美国航天局希望能组建一支性别平衡的队伍。顶级航天工程师们认为第一个踏上火星的人应该是一名女性。本集《随身英语》探讨太空事业中缺少女性工作者的原因。 Vocabulary: space 词汇: 太空 There's no doubt that one of the greatest achievements by humankind is the exploration of space. Ever since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to journey into space in 1961, scientists have been exploring it and pushing the boundaries to try and go further and discover things that are yet to be discovered. But probably the only thing that's certain about this exploration into the unknown so far, is it's been dominated by men. Of course, in the past, women haven't been excluded from space projects. Women have been involved on the ground at mission control – and behind the scenes women have worked as seamstresses, stitching vital spaceflight components. In fact, many of NASA's key missions would never have left the ground without them. And it was a group of black female mathematicians, recently depicted in a Hollywood movie called Hidden Figures, who helped NASA launch an American into space. But this hasn't been women's only contribution. Back in 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to blast off into space. However, after that, space flight programmes were slow to employ women. In the USA, NASA didn't accept applications from women to become astronauts until 1978, and as missions to the Moon had ended by then, it meant Neil Armstrong's arrival on the Moon in 1969 was 'a giant step for mankind' – and also an important step for a man. | 
