Read the text and the questions (1-5). For each question, choose the correct letter A, B, C or D. Locked out in …………..in space!
Getting locked out of your house or car can ruin your day, but when you’re floating in the darkest space, spinning high above the Earth, then getting locked out is more than frustrating-it’s a matter of life and death.
Picture this: you’re an astronaut doing repairs to the outside of the MIR space station. Earth is 358 kilometres beneath you and you’re travelling at 8 kilometres per second. There are no other people nearby to help you and the only thing attaching you to the space station is a cable. The safe thing to do is to get the repairs done quickly and get back in the space station. But what if you can’t get back inside? This is exactly what happened to Dave Wolf and Anotoly Solovyev in late 1997. They were locked out in space.
Dave had been conducting experiments aboard the Russian space station Mir when he had to do his very first spacewalk. He needed to carry out some repairs on the station. Anatloly and Dave floated out of the airlock and made sure that the cables connecting them to the space station were secure. When they had finished the repairs they made their way back. To their horror, the airlock was broken and they couldn’t get back inside. Time was running out. They only had a little bit of oxygen left so they had tough decision to make-do something extreme or face a slow death in space.
Instead of panicking they thought about their options and decided to take a big risk. Mir was a laboratory in space made up different sections. Dave decided to head for the airlock in the living area of the space station. That wasn’t as easy as it sounded though. They would have to disconnect their space suits from the space station and float around to the other airlock. This was incredibly dangerous. One mistake and they would fly off into space forever. To make it worse, their space suits’ cooling system would stop working as soon as they disconnected. That meant they had just a few minutes before they started to boil. They untied themselves and moved off.
Luckily, the other airlock worked and they climbed in. Without the cooling system, the temperature had risen inside Dave’s spacesuit and his helmet visor* was fogged up with moisture- he couldn’t see where he was going. He made a tiny gap to see through by spitting and saw that he was back inside the living area. Dave and Anatoly had made it. Wolf remained on Mir fir 128 days and went on more spacewalks, but it’s the first that he remembers the best, because it was so very close to being his last.
*visor=part of a helmet which is pulled down to protect someone’s face.

1 What is the text describing?
A how to be an astronaut
B why space is a dangerous place
C the problems of two astronauts in space.
D the benefits of the teamwork
2 What was the men’s mission?
A to go for a walk in space
B to test the safety cables
C to fix the space station
D to mend a broken airlock
3 What was the men’s attitude towards the problem?
A They believed it was hopeless.
B They stayed calm and worked together.
C They didn’t think it was anything serious.
D They were in a panic.
4 How did the men manage to get inside the space station?
A They used a different entrance.
B They mended the broken airlock
C they waited for help.
D They used the cable to pull themselves back in.
5 Which would be the most appropriate heading?
A TRAGEDY IN SPACE AS MISSSION GOES WRONG
B TWO ASTRONAUTS LOST IN SPACE
C BRAVE ASTRONAUT SAVES PARTNER’S LIFE
D ASTRONAUTS SURVIVE DANGEROUS SPACEWALK