Breaking News English

It's becoming a little [crowded / crowding] in space. There is now a record number of 19 people up in the [heaven / heavens] . The record was broken after the three-person crew [on / in] board a Russian Soyuz capsule [docked / ducked] at the International Space Station (ISS). On the recent mission [was / were] NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. They brought the number of [residence / residents] on the ISS to 12. Chinese astronauts are [addition / also] part of the record. They have three "taikonauts" working on the Tiangong Space Station. The [dividing / remaining] four space travellers are part of SpaceX's Polaris Dawn [missive / mission] . That project saw a historic first ever [civilian / civil] spacewalk last Thursday.

There is a [point / edge] of contention regarding the recent record. That is over the definition of where [inner / outer] space starts. NASA and the U.S. military [degrade / regard] the boundary separating Earth's atmosphere and outer space as [being / been] 80 km above sea level. With this [interpretation / extrapolation] , the record for humans in space is 20, set in May 2023 and [tied / tried] in January of this year. However, the conventional definition of the [edge / hedge] of space is called the Karman Line. The International Aeronautical Federation puts this line at an [attitude / altitude] of 100 km above sea level. The new record uses this definition. The Karman Line is used for legal [porpoises / purposes] to differentiate between what [constitutes / detracts] an aircraft and a spacecraft.