EnglishClub : Listen to News : SpaceX CEO Sends Personal Car Into Orbit
photo Tara Benwell Listen to News with Tara Benwell - Instructions:
1. Preview the vocabulary and read the gapfill text.
2. Play the news report and try to fill in the blanks.
3. Answer the comprehension questions by writing full sentences.
4. Use the discussion question to write an essay or discuss the story with other students.
5. Click "show Answers" to see the full text.
6. Pretend to be a news anchor by reading each story out loud.

dateline: 07 February 2018

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SpaceX CEO Sends Personal Car Into Orbit

Pre-Listening Vocabulary

  • CEO: Chief Executive Officer
  • co-founder: a person who starts a company with another person
  • launch: to send into space; to start for the first time
  • dummy: a fake person
  • orbit: the continual revolution around an object
  • payload: things and passengers carried in a vehicle
  • booster: a rocket that helps with take-off
  • simultaneously: at the same time

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SpaceX CEO Sends Personal Car Into Orbit

Elon Musk the CEO of SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla has successfully launched a test of his new, powerful rocket Falcon Heavy. The reusable launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with Musk’s personal sports car onboard. Musk’s goal was to send “Starman,” a dummy dressed in a spacesuit and his car into orbit in hopes of getting close to Mars. The CEO announced after launch that the upper section released its payload (the car), though it went further than planned. The car is now expected to orbit around the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters returned to earth as planned, landing simultaneously on their . The central core missed its landing pad and crash landed in the ocean.

Comprehension Questions

  1. Who is Elon Musk?
  2. What is Falcon Heavy?
  3. What did Falcon Heavy have onboard?

Discussion Questions

One of Musk’s goals is to populate Mars. Do you think this will happen in your lifetime?

show Answers

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Written and recorded by Tara Benwell for EnglishClub
Tara Benwell is a Canadian freelance writer and editor who specializes in materials and articles for the ELT industry.
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