Japan Times Online, June 3の記事（Europe salutes hardy Martian scout）の冒頭にあった表現が気になりました。
Europe's Mars Express was built on a relative shoestring, completed in just five years and designed to survive for just 687 days. Ten years on, ...
"shoestring" が何でこんなところに出てくるの？ 靴紐以外の意味があるに違いありませんが、記事にヒントがあるか読み続けます。
多くの収穫があったEurope's Mars Express、しかし費用は余りかからなかった事を強調しています。
Conceived as a streamlined, low-cost project, Mars Express was a gamble for ESA. It broke with conventional thinking that planetary exploration required individually tailored probes that took a decade to make and inevitably cost a billion bucks apiece.
To save costs, ESA’s contractors essentially resorted to mass production. The basic boxlike design for Mars Express, and for a sister spacecraft called Venus Express ? launched in 2005 and also doing fine ? is the same platform as for Rosetta, a comet-chasing probe whose mission is due to climax next year.
"shoestring" はお金を使っていない事と関係があるに違いありません。辞書で確認します。
・Macmillan Dictionary: having or using a very small amount of money: a shoestring budget
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a small sum of money : capital inadequate or barely adequate to the needs of a transaction: started the business on a shoestring
・Vocabulary.com: a small amount of money: “he managed it on a shoestring”
記事での使われ方も辞書での例文も "shoestring" の前に "on a" が付く事が多いようです。
少ない予算とはいえ、私にとっては天文学的な金額です。
So far, exploration of Mars has cost ESA ?300 million ($390 million), which is minute for a mission that has returned such wonders.
Europe's Mars Express was built on a relative shoestring, completed in just five years and designed to survive for just 687 days. Ten years on, ...
"shoestring" が何でこんなところに出てくるの？ 靴紐以外の意味があるに違いありませんが、記事にヒントがあるか読み続けます。
多くの収穫があったEurope's Mars Express、しかし費用は余りかからなかった事を強調しています。
Conceived as a streamlined, low-cost project, Mars Express was a gamble for ESA. It broke with conventional thinking that planetary exploration required individually tailored probes that took a decade to make and inevitably cost a billion bucks apiece.
To save costs, ESA’s contractors essentially resorted to mass production. The basic boxlike design for Mars Express, and for a sister spacecraft called Venus Express ? launched in 2005 and also doing fine ? is the same platform as for Rosetta, a comet-chasing probe whose mission is due to climax next year.
"shoestring" はお金を使っていない事と関係があるに違いありません。辞書で確認します。
・Macmillan Dictionary: having or using a very small amount of money: a shoestring budget
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a small sum of money : capital inadequate or barely adequate to the needs of a transaction: started the business on a shoestring
・Vocabulary.com: a small amount of money: “he managed it on a shoestring”
記事での使われ方も辞書での例文も "shoestring" の前に "on a" が付く事が多いようです。
少ない予算とはいえ、私にとっては天文学的な金額です。
So far, exploration of Mars has cost ESA ?300 million ($390 million), which is minute for a mission that has returned such wonders.
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