Mitsuru Kasai
Nov 13 '98

John Glenn, the oldest astronaut in the world who had gotten abraded the shuttle Discovery, came back to the earth. He had participated in the crew members of this journey as geriatric test subject in space, and is still keeping having examination. He and his fellow astronauts hope that the people's fever toward the space project is not getting cool down.

I had not known about this great old man because I had not seen TV or newspaper this few weeks. I heard this news from my mother that he was a kind of hero in Japan, too. Therefore, I tried to search about him. I think this article, from CNN, is reliable. I, however, noticed that the tone of this article, that is, vocabularies that the writer of this article uses like "guinea pig" make this article ironic.

-guinea pig (n): someone who is used in a test to see how successful or safe a new product, system etc. is.

"And he's still NASA's guinea pig."

-orbit (n): the path traveled by an object that is moving around a larger object
orbit (v): to travel in a circle around a large object

"He even had to climb back into wired-up sleep suit Sunday night so that his post-flight slumber can be compared with how he slept in orbit."

-undergo (v): if you undergo something unpleasant or hard to deal with, it happens to you or is done to you.

"he'll have to undergo monthly muscle and bone tests for six months"

-overwhelm (v): if a feeling overwhelms someone, s/he feels it very strongly.
overwhelming (adj): affecting someone very strongly

"The astronauts, who seemed overwhelmed by the show of support, urged Americans to maintain an interest in the space program after this mission."

-geriatric (adj) 1, relating to geriatrics 2. too old or too week to work well
geriatrics (n): the medical treatment and care of older people

"NASA finally gave way in January, clearing him as the first geriatric test subject in space."

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