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[existenz]

Spread out inside the sprawling structure will soon be a dead-ringer Mars base, complete with habitat modules, an extraterrestrial greenhouse and even a ground cover of volcanic dust shipped in from Hawaii - about as close as you can get to real Martian dirt without actually visiting the planet.

In a move the White House probably saw as an election-year head snapper, President George W. Bush sketched out a long-term vision for manned spaceflight that goes far beyond the dog paddling in near-Earth orbit to which the space agency has confined itself since the 1970s.

Can anybody help me get the meaning of these underlined phrases ?
Thanks in advance

[LucentShade]

sprawling structure--a building or set of buildings that occupies a large area of land. The term "urban sprawl" refers to suburban areas that seem to extend forever.

ground cover--something that covers the ground in a given area. In this case, they're going to put volcanic dust on the ground to imitate the conditions on Mars

head-snapper--something that calls attention to itself: Bush wants these plans to make him look good as he campaigns for re-election. (This is the sort of term that should be hyphenated as I wrote it, in my opinion.)

dog paddling--a type of inexperienced swimming done by children, as well as dogs. This is a metaphor; it compares our current space missions to a child swimming in shallow water. Going to somewhere like Mars, though, would be like swimming out deeper in the ocean, only this ocean is outer space, not an actual body of water.

[existenz]

thank you )

Do you have any website which can guide me through such as these expressions ?

[bud]

The link below is sometimes helpful for expressions. Enter the one word that you think might be the most important to the expression. You'll get links to that one word from many online dictionaries. Almost always, Cambride Dictionaries and American Heritage Dictionary are in the list. They often have expressions containing that word. Also look through the list and click on any link for dictionaries with "Idiom" or "Slang" in their title. Other dictionaries in the list might be good, too, but those are probably the most likely.

http://www.onelook.com/

Hope it helps.

[existenz]

thank you again for that website