DISPOSE OF NUCLEAR WASTE IN SPACE
Fifty years into the atomic age, there is still no way to dispose of thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste. Thirty-eight years into the space age, there is still no inexpensive, reliable means to launch payloads to orbit. Four years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of highly skilled engineers and scientists are discovering that the end of the Cold War has also ended their careers.
Are these three regrettable, but isolated problems or are they an opportunity to provide a better future while opening up the promise of space? lt is time to reconsider disposing of high-level nuclear waste in space, instead of underground.
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Nuclear waste has been the province of geologist and mining engineers for years, and their focus is under the Earth's surface. But the aerospace community, focused on satellite and manned flight, did not like the image of space as a garbage dump. Both communities now have reason to reconsider space disposal of nuclear wastes.
Space disposal will permanently remove the burden and responsibility of high-level radioactive waste from future generations. And it will provide a justification for massive investment in much-needed space technologies. Now that the U.S — Soviet rivalry that fed much of the space race is gone, space exploration and development increasingly have to be justified on their own merits. The immediate and clear benefits of shipping nuclear wastes to space may make space disposal more politically attractive than a manned mission to Mars.[..................................................................... ].
SPACE NEWS - May, 1995.
A questão refere-se ao texto cujo vocabulário se segue:
• nuclear waste = lixo nuclear
• There’s still no way = Ainda não há meio
• to dispose = desfazer-se, levar-se, acabar com
• thousands of = milhares de
• tons = toneladas
• high-level = alto nível
• inexpensive = barato
• reliable = seguro, confiável
• means = meios
• to launch = lançar
• payloads = cargas
• breakup = dissolução
• skilled = aptos, habilidosos, qualificados
• careers = carreiras
• regrettable = lamentáveis
• instead of = em vez de
• underground = subsolo
• province = área, terreno
• mining engineers = engenheiros de minas
• surface = superfície
• manned flight = vôo tripulado
• garbage dump = depósito de lixo
• both = ambos
• reason = razão
• burden = tarefa, encargo
• rivalry = rivalidade
• to feed, fed, fed = alimentar
• space race = corrida espacial
• increasingly = gradativamente
• own = próprios
• benefits = benefícios
• to ship = enviar, despachar, mandar
A palavra reliable, na linha 2 do texto, poderia ser traduzida por: