托福阅读素材（四）

　　9:44

　　MK: Kind of. The day after Gabby was injured, I called my boss, the chief astronaut, Dr. Peggy Whitson, and I said, "Peggy, I know I'm launching in space in three months from now. Gabby's in a coma. I'm in Tucson. You've got to find a replacement for me." So I didn't actually resign from being an astronaut,but I gave up my job and they found a replacement. Months later, maybe about two months later, I started about getting my job back, which is something, when you become this primary caregiver person, which some people in the audience here have certainly been in that position, it's a challenging role but at some point you've got to figure out when you're going to get your life back, and at the time, I couldn't ask Gabby if she wanted me to go fly in the space shuttle again. But I knew she was— GG: Yes. Yes. Yes.

　　10:31

　　MK: She was the biggest supporter of my career, and I knew it was the right thing to do.

　　10:35

　　PM: And yet I'm trying to imagine, Mark, what that was like, going off onto a mission, one presumes safely, but it's never a guarantee, and knowing that Gabby is —

　　10:47

　　MK: Well not only was she still in the hospital, on the third day of that flight, literally while I wasrendezvousing with the space station, and you've got two vehicles moving at 17,500 miles an hour, I'm actually flying it, looking out the window, a bunch of computers, Gabby was in brain surgery, literally at that time having the final surgery to replace the piece of skull that they took out on the day she was injured with a prosthetic, yeah, which is the whole side of her head. Now if any of you guys would ever come to our house in Tucson for the first time, Gabby would usually go up to the freezer and pull out the piece of Tupperware that has the real skull. (Laughter)

　　11:30

　　GG: The real skull. MK: Which freaks people out, sometimes.

　　11:33

　　PM: Is that for appetizer or dessert, Mark?

　　11:36

　　MK: Well, it just gets the conversation going.

　　11:41

　　PM: But there was a lot of conversation about something you did, Gabby, after Mark's flight. You had to make another step of courage too, because here was Congress deadlocked again, and you got out of the rehabilitation center, got yourself to Washington so that you could walk on the floor of the House -- I can barely talk about this without getting emotional — and cast a vote which could have been the deciding vote.

　　12:12

　　GG: The debt ceiling. The debt ceiling.

　　12:15

　　MK: Yeah, we had that vote, I guess about five months after Gabby was injured, and she made this bold decision to go back. A very controversial vote, but she wanted to be there to have her voice heard one more time.

　　12:28

　　PM: And after that, resigned and began what has been a very slow and challenging recovery. What's life like, day to day?

　　12:39

　　MK: Well, that's Gabby's service dog Nelson.

　　12:42

　　GG: Nelson.

　　12:43

　　MK: New member of our family. GG: Yes, yes.

　　12:46

　　MK: And we got him from a—

　　12:49

　　GG: Prison. Murder. MK: We have a lot of connections with prisons, apparently. (Laughter) Nelson came from a prison, raised by a murderer in Massachusetts. But she did a great job with this dog. He's a fabulous service dog.