The End of the Space Age

太空時(shí)代的結(jié)束

Inner space is useful. Outer space is history

研究內(nèi)太空才有用，讓外太空研究成為歷史

　　How big is the Earth? Any encyclopedia will give you an answer: its equatorial diameter is 12,756km, or, for those who prefer to think that way, 7,926 miles. Ah, but then there is the atmosphere. Should that count? Perhaps the planet’s true diameter is actually nearer 13,000km, including all its air. But even that may no longer be an adequate measure. For the Earth now reaches farther still. The vacuum surrounding it buzzes with artificial satellites, forming a sort of technosphere beyond the atmosphere. Most of these satellites circle only a few hundred kilometres above the planet’s solid surface. Many, though, form a ring like Saturn’s at a distance of 36,000km, the place at which an object takes 24 hours to orbit the Earth and thus hovers continuously over the same point of the planet.

　　地球有多大?任何一本百科全書都會(huì)給你答案：赤道直徑是12756公里，或者，用英里來表達(dá)7926英里。嗯，但是大氣層有多大呢?也能計(jì)算嗎? 包括空氣(大氣層)在內(nèi)，地球的直徑可能接近13000公里。甚至連這個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)也不夠充分。因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)在地球的變化太大(遠(yuǎn)離平靜的狀態(tài))。包圍大氣層的外部空間人造衛(wèi)星來去匆匆，形成一個(gè)在大氣層外面的所謂技術(shù)層。大部分衛(wèi)星繞行高度離地球地表僅幾百公里。然而，在距地球36000公里的軌道上物體繞轉(zhuǎn)地球一周的時(shí)間為24小時(shí)，這個(gè)物體飛行時(shí)持續(xù)面對的是地球上的不變的同一個(gè)點(diǎn)，這樣許多地球同步衛(wèi)星的運(yùn)行會(huì)形成一個(gè)類似的土星環(huán)。

　　Viewed this way, the Earth is quite a lot larger than the traditional textbook answer. And viewed this way, the Space Age has been a roaring success. Telecommunications, weather forecasting, agriculture, forestry and even the search for minerals have all been revolutionised. So has warfare. No power can any longer mobilise its armed forces in secret. The exact location of every building on the planet can be known. And satellite-based global-positioning systems will guide a smart bomb to that location on demand.

　　從這個(gè)方面看，地球比傳統(tǒng)的教科書上的回答其實(shí)要大很多。這樣看來，太空時(shí)代已經(jīng)有了相當(dāng)?shù)某晒�。電信業(yè)，天氣預(yù)測，農(nóng)業(yè)，林業(yè)，甚至是在礦藏搜尋方面都有了徹底變革。戰(zhàn)爭也同樣如此，再也沒有政府能秘密地調(diào)兵遣將。這顆星球上的每一幢建筑物的位置都能被精確掌握�；�于衛(wèi)星的全球定位系統(tǒng)能按要求指引智能炸彈到達(dá)目標(biāo)。

　　Yet none of this was the Space Age as envisaged by the enthusiastic “space cadets” who got the whole thing going. Though engineers like Wernher von Braun, who built the rockets for both Germany’s second-world-war V2 project and America’s cold-war Apollo project, sold their souls to the military establishment in order to pursue their dreams of space travel by the only means then available, most of them had their eyes on a higher prize. “First Men to a Geostationary Orbit” does not have quite the same ring as “First Men to the Moon”, a book von Braun wrote in 1958. The vision being sold in the 1950s and 1960s, when the early space rockets were flying, was of adventure and exploration. The facts of the American space project and its Soviet counterpart elided seamlessly into the fantasy of “Star Trek” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Other planets may or may not have been inhabited by aliens, but they, and even other stars, were there for the taking. That the taking would begin in the lifetimes of people then alive was widely assumed to be true.

　　然而沒有這些推動(dòng)太空事業(yè)發(fā)展的太空學(xué)員的滿腔熱情，太空時(shí)代便無法想象。工程師們?yōu)榱藢?shí)現(xiàn)遨游太空的夢想全身心地投入到軍事機(jī)構(gòu)中，這是唯一的可以獲得使用的途徑。比如工程師Wernher Braun，他為二戰(zhàn)時(shí)期的德國V2計(jì)劃和冷戰(zhàn)時(shí)期的美國阿波羅計(jì)劃分別建造了火箭。雖然他們中很多人是為了獲得高額的獎(jiǎng)金。工程師Wernher Braun在1958年的一本書中寫道，第一個(gè)到達(dá)與地球同步軌道的人并沒有得到第一個(gè)到達(dá)月球的人同樣的花環(huán)。二十世紀(jì)五六十年代，當(dāng)早期的意在探索冒險(xiǎn)的太空火箭升空時(shí)，太空遨游的幻想就更熱切了。事實(shí)上，美國的太空計(jì)劃署和蘇聯(lián)的太空部門已經(jīng)忽略了像“星際旅行”和“2001：太空冒險(xiǎn)”這樣的完美的幻想。

　　No longer. It is quite conceivable that 36,000km will prove the limit of human ambition. It is equally conceivable that the fantasy-made-reality of human space flight will return to fantasy. It is likely that the Space Age is over.

　　從此不再幻想。36000公里成為人類抱負(fù)的極限，這件事會(huì)相當(dāng)可信。人類太空飛翔的夢想成為現(xiàn)實(shí)，而退回想象也將變得同樣可信。換言之，太空時(shí)代即將結(jié)束。

　　Bye-bye, sci-fi

　　再見，科學(xué)幻想

　　Today’s space cadets will, no doubt, oppose that claim vigorously. They will, in particular, point to the private ventures of people like Elon Musk in America and Sir Richard Branson in Britain, who hope to make human space flight commercially viable. Indeed, the enterprise of such people might do just that. But the market seems small and vulnerable. One part, space tourism, is a luxury service that is, in any case, unlikely to go beyond low-Earth orbit at best (the cost of getting even as far as the moon would reduce the number of potential clients to a handful). The other source of revenue is ferrying astronauts to the benighted International Space Station (ISS), surely the biggest waste of money, at $100 billion and counting, that has ever been built in the name of science.

　　毫無疑問，今天的太空學(xué)員們會(huì)強(qiáng)烈反對這個(gè)聲稱。他們尤其會(huì)提到希望以商業(yè)方式實(shí)現(xiàn)太空飛翔的個(gè)人冒險(xiǎn)者，比如美國的Elon Musk和英國的Sir Richard Branson。這些計(jì)劃冒險(xiǎn)的人果真也會(huì)像太空學(xué)員們一樣予以反對。但是這個(gè)市場似乎很小也很脆弱。一方面，太空旅行是一項(xiàng)奢侈的服務(wù)，不像沖出地球低軌道那么容易(這些如同與月球距離一般可觀的巨額花費(fèi)使?jié)撛诳腿说臄?shù)字減少到幾個(gè))。另外一方面，是把宇航員飛渡到蒙昧的國際太空站(ISS)所需要的資金來源，無疑是最大的浪費(fèi)，已經(jīng)花了千億美金卻還在增長，那個(gè)曾經(jīng)是以科學(xué)的名義建立起來的。

　　The reason for that second objective is also the reason for thinking 2011 might, in the history books of the future, be seen as the year when the space cadets’ dream finally died. It marks the end of America’s space-shuttle programme, whose last mission is planned to launch on July 8th. The shuttle was supposed to be a reusable truck that would make the business of putting people into orbit quotidian. Instead, it has been nothing but trouble. Twice, it has killed its crew. If it had been seen as the experimental vehicle it actually is, that would not have been a particular cause for concern; test pilots are killed all the time. But the pretence was maintained that the shuttle was a workaday craft. The technical term used by NASA, “Space Transportation System”, says it all.

　　上面提到的第二個(gè)理由也許將成為另外一個(gè)理由，即未來的歷史書將把2011年視作太空學(xué)員夢想破滅的一年。它標(biāo)志著美國航天計(jì)劃的結(jié)束，該計(jì)劃的最后使命是完成7月8日的發(fā)射。太空飛船被假設(shè)為一輛能重復(fù)使用的貨車以期實(shí)現(xiàn)把人送往同步軌道的商業(yè)事宜。事實(shí)是它什么也沒完成卻帶來了麻煩。它曾兩次失事扼殺全部乘員(哥倫比亞號(hào)和挑戰(zhàn)者號(hào))。事實(shí)上它只是個(gè)試驗(yàn)性運(yùn)輸工具，要不它不應(yīng)該有讓人焦慮的特別理由;宇航員不時(shí)的被害。但是太空飛船只是一架普通飛機(jī)的假設(shè)需要維護(hù)。其使用的科學(xué)術(shù)語是NASA，其實(shí)它只是一個(gè)“太空運(yùn)輸系統(tǒng)”。

　　But the shuttle is now over. The ISS is due to be de-orbited, in the inelegant jargon of the field, in 2020. Once that happens, the game will be up. There is no appetite to return to the moon, let alone push on to Mars, El Dorado of space exploration. The technology could be there, but the passion has gone – at least in the traditional spacefaring powers, America and Russia.

　　太空飛船事業(yè)即將結(jié)束。到2020年，ISS將被重設(shè)軌道(這個(gè)領(lǐng)域的不雅的術(shù)語)。事情一旦發(fā)生，游戲就將終結(jié)。再也沒有重返月球的欲望，更不用談火星推進(jìn)計(jì)劃，太空探險(xiǎn)的El Dorado計(jì)劃。技術(shù)仍然存在，但是激情已然消失——至少就傳統(tǒng)的太空強(qiáng)國，美國和蘇聯(lián)而言。

　　The space cadets’ other hope, China, might pick up the baton. Certainly it claims it wishes, like President John Kennedy 50 years ago, to send people to the surface of the moon and return them safely to Earth. But the date for doing so seems elastic. There is none of Kennedy’s “by the end of the decade” bravura about the announcements from Beijing. Moreover, even if China succeeds in matching America’s distant triumph, it still faces the question, “what next?” The chances are that the Chinese government, like Richard Nixon’s in 1972, will say “job done” and pull the plug on the whole shebang.

　　太空學(xué)員們的另一個(gè)希望之地，中國，也許將拾起接力棒。確定中國就像50年之前的約翰·肯尼迪一樣宣布并希望要把人類送達(dá)月球表面并安全返回地球。但完成這一愿望的日期看起來是有彈性的。來自北京的宣告缺乏肯尼迪的堅(jiān)信“到這個(gè)年代末”。(阿波羅11號(hào)在1969年7月20日登陸月球)。而且，即使中國成功地對接了美國的遙遠(yuǎn)的勝利，它仍需面對這個(gè)問題，“接下來怎么樣?”屬于中國領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人的那一時(shí)刻，是否會(huì)像1972年的尼克松一樣說“任務(wù)完成了”然后拔下整個(gè)系統(tǒng)的插頭呢。

　　No bucks, no Buck Rogers

　　沒有激情，也沒有太空英雄

　　With luck, robotic exploration of the solar system will continue. But even there, the risk is of diminishing returns. Every planet has now been visited, and every planet with a solid surface bar Mercury has been landed on. Asteroids, moons and comets have all been added to the stamp album. Unless life turns up on Mars, or somewhere even more unexpected, public interest in the whole thing is likely to wane. And it is the public that pays for it all.

　　好在針對太陽系的機(jī)器探測仍將持續(xù)。但即便如此，風(fēng)險(xiǎn)猶存，因?yàn)榛貓?bào)越來越少�，F(xiàn)在太陽系中的每顆行星都已經(jīng)被偵察過，每一顆表面是固體的行星，使者M(jìn)ercury都已經(jīng)登陸過。小行星，衛(wèi)星和彗星已經(jīng)增加到集郵冊里。除非火星上出現(xiàn)生命，或者出現(xiàn)未曾預(yù)料之地，公眾對探索宇宙的興趣可能越來越弱。而為它買單的依然是廣大的民眾。

　　The future, then, looks bounded by that new outer limit of planet Earth, the geostationary orbit. Within it, the buzz of activity will continue to grow and fill the vacuum. This part of space will be tamed by humanity, as the species has tamed so many wildernesses in the past. Outside it, though, the vacuum will remain empty. There may be occasional forays, just as men sometimes leave their huddled research bases in Antarctica to scuttle briefly across the ice cap before returning, for warmth, food and company, to base. But humanity’s dreams of a future beyond that final frontier have, largely, faded.

　　那么，未來看來要被限制在地球的新的外邊界之內(nèi)，即同步軌道。在這層空間里，各種活動(dòng)的嗡嗡聲將繼續(xù)增長而充滿了整個(gè)空間。這部分空間將被人類馴服，就像在過去物種馴服了這么多的荒野。而36000之外的空間仍將是空的。可能也會(huì)有偶爾的突襲，就像在南極考察的人們有時(shí)為了溫暖、食物和朋友離開他們的扎堆而設(shè)的研究基地，在返回之前，這些基地早已沉沒在南極洲的冰蓋之下。但人類想超越領(lǐng)域最前沿的未來夢想已經(jīng)，褪色很多。

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