Listening

Warm Up

Helpful Words and Phrases

Listen and repeat.

  1. pull off (something)
    • ex. She pulled off her dance performance perfectly in front of the audience, although she was nervous.
  2. a spacewalk
    • ex. The astronauts went on a spacewalk to fix the outside of the spaceship.
  3. orbit
    • ex. The Moon orbits the Earth every 27 days.
  4. chartered
    • ex. The school got a chartered bus to take the students on a school trip.
  5. undisclosed
    • ex. The company made an undisclosed donation to help build a new school in the village.

Article

Read the article below and answer your tutor's questions.

Font size

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his team safely returned to Earth after a five-day space mission. The trip took them higher than anyone has traveled since NASA’s moonwalkers. SpaceX’s capsule, which carried Isaacman, two SpaceX engineers, and an ex-Air Force pilot, came down on the Gulf of Mexico on September 15. 

Isaacman’s team pulled off the first private spacewalk while orbiting nearly 460 miles (740 kilometers) above Earth. This is higher than the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. Isaacman became the 264th person to do a spacewalk since the first one in 1965. Until now, only professional astronauts have done spacewalks.

The trip was Isaacman’s second chartered flight with SpaceX. He has two more flights planned under his space travel program named Polaris. He paid an undisclosed amount for his first flight in 2021, taking contest winners and a cancer survivor while raising over $250 million (more than ¥36 billion) for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. For this year’s space mission, Isaacman shared the cost with SpaceX. But he wouldn’t say how much he spent.

Discussion

Choose a topic and discuss the questions with your tutor.

Space Travel

  • Would you like to experience traveling to space? Why or why not? Discuss.
  • Jared Isaacman has been on two spaceflights and wants to go on more. Do you think this frequent travel will change people’s opinion of space travel? Why or why not? Discuss.
  • Why do you think some people, such as entrepreneurs, are interested in space travel? Discuss.

Billionaires and Space Missions

  • Isaacman’s first flight raised money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Do you think this added value to his space mission? Why or why not? Discuss.
  • What do you think about billionaires like Isaacman paying for and going on space missions (ex. it’s amazing, it’s not necessary)? Discuss.
  • What do you think about spending a lot of money on private space missions? Discuss.