| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
|
| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
| [英文] [中文] [双语对照] [双语交替] [] |
| Another big Chinese rocket launched to space on Sunday at 2:22 p.m. Beijing time, and once again, no one knows where or when it will come down. |
| 北京时间周日下午2点22分，中国又一枚大型运载火箭发射升空。和以前一样，这次也没人知道它什么时候会掉下来、掉在哪里。 |
| It will be a replay of two earlier launches of the same rocket, the Long March 5B, which is one of the largest currently in use. For about a week after launch, the world’s watchers of space debris will be tracking the 10-story, 23-ton rocket booster as wisps of air friction slowly pull back it back down. |
| 这将是长征五号B运载火箭上两次发射的重演，该火箭是中国目前使用的最大火箭之一。在发射后的大约一周里，世界各地的太空残骸观察者们将跟踪这个10层楼高、23吨重的火箭助推器在空气摩擦力的作用下慢慢坠回地面的过程。 |
| The chance that it will strike anyone on Earth is low but significantly higher than what many space experts consider acceptable. |
| 虽然火箭残骸击中人的概率很低，但仍显著高于许多太空专家认为可以接受的程度。 |
| The powerful rocket was designed specifically to launch pieces of China’s Tiangong space station. The latest mission lifted Wentian, a laboratory module that will expand the station’s scientific research capabilities. It will also add three more spaces for astronauts to sleep and another airlock for them to conduct spacewalks. |
| 这些运载能力强大的火箭是专门为发射中国天宫空间站的部件设计的。最近这次任务是发射问天实验舱，它将提高空间站的科学研究能力。该实验舱还将增加可供三名航天员睡觉的空间，以及另一个供航天员进行出舱活动的气闸舱。 |
| Completing and operating the space station is described in state media broadcasts as important to China’s national prestige. But the country has taken some damage to its reputation during earlier flights of the rocket. |
| 官方媒体的报道称，空间站的建设和运行对中国的国家威望至关重要。但中国的声誉已在该系列火箭早些时候发射时受到了一定损害。 |
| After the first Long March 5B launch in 2020, the booster re-entered over West Africa, with debris causing damage but no injuries to villages in the nation of Ivory Coast. |
| 2020年，长征五号B火箭第一次发射后，助推器在非洲西部上空再入大气层，残骸给科特迪瓦的村庄造成破坏，但没有造成人员伤亡。 |
| The booster from the second launch, in 2021, splashed harmlessly in the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. Still, Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, issued a statement criticizing the Chinese. “It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris,” he said. |
| 2021年，长征五号B火箭第二次发射后，助推器残骸坠入了马尔代夫附近的印度洋，没有造成伤害。尽管如此，美国国家航空航天局局长比尔·纳尔逊在一份声明中谴责了中国。“很明显，中国在处理本国的太空垃圾方面未达到负责任的标准，”他说。 |
| China rejected that criticism with considerable fanfare. Hua Chunying, a senior spokeswoman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accused the United States of “hype.” |
| 中国对这种批评予以大力驳斥。外交部资深发言人华春莹指责美国“炒作”。 |
| “The U.S. and a few other countries have been hyping up the landing of the Chinese rocket debris over the past few days,” Ms. Hua said. “To date, no damage by the landing debris has been reported. I’ve seen reports that since the launch of the first man-made satellite over 60 years ago, not a single incident has occurred where a piece of debris hit someone. U.S. experts put the chances of that at less than one in a billion.” |
| “这几天大家都非常关心中国火箭残骸坠落的问题，”华春莹说。“火箭末级已再入大气层，没有对地面造成危害的报道。”她还说，“有报道说，自从第一颗人造卫星发射60多年来，从来没有发生过残骸击中人的案例，美国专家也表示火箭残骸击中人的概率大概是十亿分之一。” |
| China’s space agencies did not respond to a request for an interview about the upcoming launch. |
| 中国的航天部门没有回复记者有关此次发射的采访请求。 |
| Space has immense prestige for the Chinese government, which sees each major launch as adding to its accumulation of space power, said Namrata Goswani, an author of “Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space.” |
| 《抢占太空：外层空间资源的大国竞争》(Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space)一书的作者纳姆拉塔·戈斯瓦尼表示，在中国政府看来，太空至关重要，它把每次重大发射都视为本国太空实力的积累。 |
| China has surpassed Russia in the sophistication of its space program, Dr. Goswani said. “China is ahead when compared to the Russian space program in terms of its lunar and Mars program as well as military space organization,” she said. |
| 戈斯瓦尼说，中国太空计划的先进程度已经超过了俄罗斯。“从月球、火星计划以及军事太空组织来看，中国领先于俄罗斯的太空计划，”她说。 |
| On a sunny and warm morning, crowds of China’s space fans spread across the beach near the rocket launch area on Hainan Island in the country’s south. Others crammed onto rooftops at hotels along the beach front. |
| 在一个温暖、明媚的早晨，中国的航天迷们三三两两地呆在海南岛的火箭发射场附近的海滩上。还有人则挤在海边酒店的屋顶上。 |
| Zhang Jingyi, 26, set up her camera on a hotel roof along with about 30 others on Sunday morning. |
| 周日一大早，26岁的张静怡（音）就和其他30多人一起，在一家酒店的屋顶上架起了相机。 |
| It was her 19th trip to “chase rockets,” she said. She made her hotel reservation four months ago. |
| 她说，这是她第19次“追火箭”。酒店在四个月前就预订好了。 |
| “There are more people than ever,” she said. |
| “人这次空前的多，”她说。 |
| Ms. Zhang referred to the rocket by the nickname used by aficionados: “Fat Five.” “There will be a small earthquake when it is launched,” she said. |
| 张女士提到这枚火箭时用的是爱好者给其起的昵称“胖五”。“发射会有小型地震，”她说。 |
| China has landed a rover on the far side of the moon, gathered lunar material and brought it back to Earth for scientific study and landed and operated a rover on Mars. The United States is the only other country to accomplish that last feat. |
| 中国在月球背面着陆了一辆月球车，收集了月球物质，并带回地球进行科学研究。它还在火星着陆和操作了一辆火星车。世界上完成了这一壮举的国家除中国外只有美国。 |
| “China is not and has not done anything the U.S. has not already done in space,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, professor at the U.S. Naval War College and former chair of the National Security Affairs department. “But it is reaching technical parity, which is of great concern to the U.S.” |
| “中国过去和现在在太空做的事情，都是美国做过的，”美国海军战争学院教授、曾任国家安全事务系主任的琼·约翰逊-弗里泽说。“但它正在技术上达到对等的水平，这是美国非常担心的。” |
| She likened the Chinese space program as a tortoise compared to the American hare, “though the tortoise has sped up considerably in recent years.” |
| 她把中国的太空计划和美国的太空计划比作龟兔赛跑，中国是乌龟，美国是兔子，“但近年来乌龟的速度加快了很多。” |
| As of this April, China had completed a total of six missions for the construction of the space station. Three crews of astronauts have lived aboard the station, including the trio that will receive the Wentian module this week. |
| 到今年4月为止，中国为建设空间站已完成了六次发射任务。已有三批航天员在空间站生活过，包括本周将接收问天实验舱的三名航天员。 |
| About 15 minutes after the launch, the rocket booster successfully placed the Wentian spacecraft on its intended orbital path. It is to rendezvous with the Tianhe space station module about 13 hours after liftoff. The Chinese space agency has not given any indication that it has made any changes to the booster. |
| 这次发射大约15分钟后，火箭助推器将问天实验舱成功地送入了预定轨道。问天实验舱将在升空13个小时后与天河空间站模块对接。中国航天部门没有给出任何迹象表明它对助推器进行了任何改动。 |
| “It’s going to be the same story,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who tracks the comings and goings of objects in space. “It’s possible that the rocket designers could have made some minor change to the rocket that would let them then propulsively deorbit the stage. But I don’t expect so.” |
| “这次和上次会是同样的故事，”马萨诸塞州堪布里奇天体物理中心的天体物理学家乔纳森·麦克道尔说，他跟踪物体在空间的轨道。“火箭设计师对火箭做一些小改动，用推进的方式让其脱离轨道，有这种可能性。但我估计他们没有这样做。” |
| If the rocket design has not changed, no thrusters will be guiding its descent, and the booster’s engines cannot be restarted. The final rain of debris, with a few tons of metal expected to survive all the way to the surface, could occur anywhere along the booster’s path, which travels as far north as 41.5 degrees north latitude and as far south as 41.5 degrees south latitude. |
| 如果火箭的设计没有改变，没有使用推进器来引导其下降，推进器的引擎也不能重新启动。最后的残骸雨（预计会有数吨金属落到地球表面）可能会在沿助推器轨道的任何地方落下，最北端是北纬41.5度，最南端是南纬41.5度。 |
| That means there will be no danger to Chicago or Rome, which both lie a bit north of the orbital trajectories, but Los Angeles, New York, Cairo and Sydney, Australia are among the cities that the booster will travel over. |
| 这意味着芝加哥和罗马不会有危险，这两座城市的纬度都高于助推器轨道的最北端，但是洛杉矶、纽约、开罗和澳大利亚的悉尼都是助推器轨道经过的地方。 |
| The science of predicting where a tumbling rocket stage is going to fall is tricky. The Earth’s atmosphere puffs up and deflates depending on how strongly the sun is shining on a particular day, and that phenomenon speeds or slows the rate of falling. If a calculation is off by half an hour, the falling debris has already traveled one-third of the way around the world. |
| 很难科学地预测火箭级坠落的准确位置。地球大气层的膨胀和收缩与某个具体日子的太阳照射强度有关，这个现象会加速或减缓下降的速度。如果计算的偏差是半个小时的话，正在坠落的残骸足以在这段时间里环绕地球三分之一圈。 |
| By design, the center booster stage of the Long March 5B will push the Wentian module, which is more than 50 feet long, all the way to orbit. That means the booster will also reach orbit. |
| 按照设计，长征五号B的中心助推器级将把总长17.9米问天实验舱一直推进轨道。这意味着助推器也将进入轨道。 |
| This differs from most rockets, where the lower stages typically drop back to Earth immediately after launch. Upper stages that reach orbit usually fire the engine again after releasing their payloads, guiding them toward re-entry over an unoccupied area, like the middle of an ocean. |
| 这与大多数火箭不同，大多数火箭的末级通常在发射后很快返回地球。进入轨道的上一级火箭通常在释放了有效载荷后再次启动引擎，引导其在无人区域（比如海洋中央）再入大气层。 |
| Malfunctions occasionally cause unintended uncontrolled re-entries, like the second stage of a SpaceX rocket that came down over Washington State in 2021. But the Falcon 9 stage was smaller, about four tons, and less likely to cause damage or injuries. |
| 故障偶尔会导致意外的失控再入大气层，比如2021年SpaceX的一枚二级火箭在美国的华盛顿州上空坠落。但猎鹰9号火箭的级更小，大约只有四吨重，不大可能造成财产损坏或人身伤害。 |
| The United States and NASA were not always been as careful as they are now when bringing large objects back into the atmosphere. |
| 美国和NASA在将大型物体带回大气层时并不总是像现在这样小心。 |
| Skylab, the first American space station, plummeted to Earth in 1979, with large pieces hitting Western Australia. (NASA never paid a $400 fine for littering.) |
| 美国第一个空间站天空实验室1979年坠回地球时，大块残骸落在了澳大利亚西部。（NASA一直没有支付澳大利亚因其乱扔垃圾开出的400美元罚单。） |
| NASA also did not plan the disposal of its Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, after the end of that mission in 2005. Six years later, as the dead satellite, which was the size of the city bus, was headed toward an uncontrolled re-entry, NASA calculated a 1-in-3,200 chance that someone could be injured. It ended up falling in the Pacific Ocean. |
| NASA对其高层大气研究卫星UARS在2005年任务结束后如何处理也没有计划。六年后，当那颗和城市巴士一样大的废弃卫星不受控地再入大气层时，NASA曾计算过其导致人员受伤的概率为万分之三。卫星残骸最后掉进了太平洋。 |
| Typically 20 percent to 40 percent of a rocket or satellite will survive re-entry, said Ted Muelhaupt, a debris expert at Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit largely financed by the federal government that performs research and analysis. |
| 航空航天公司的残骸专家泰德·穆尔豪普特说，一般来说，20%到40%的火箭或卫星残骸在再入大气层时未完全烧毁。航空航天公司是一家从事研究和分析的非盈利机构，主要由联邦政府资助。 |
| That would suggest 10,000 pounds to 20,000 pounds of the Long March 5B booster could hit the Earth’s surface. |
| 这意味着有4500公斤到9000公斤的长征五号B火箭助推器残骸有可能撞击地球表面。 |
| Mr. Muelhaupt said the United States and some other countries avoid uncontrolled re-entries of space debris if the chances of an injury to someone on the ground are higher than 1 in 10,000. |
| 穆尔豪普特说，如果地面人员受伤的概率高于万分之一，美国和其他一些国家会避免让太空残骸不受控地再入大气层。 |
| To date, there have been no known cases where someone was hurt by falling human-made space debris. |
| 到目前为止，还没有人因人造太空残骸坠落而受伤的例子。 |
| “That 1-in-10,000 number is somewhat arbitrary,” Mr. Muelhaupt said. “It has been widely accepted, and recently there’s been concern about when a lot of objects re-enter, they add up to the point where somebody is going to get hurt.” |
| “万分之一的概率有点任意，”穆尔豪普特说。“但这已经被广泛接受，最近有一种担心是，当很多物体一起再入大气层时，它们导致人员受伤的概率加在一起会达到能给某个地方带来伤害的程度。” |
| If the risk is higher, “it’s fairly common practice to dump them in the ocean,” said Marlon Sorge, executive director of Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies. “That way, you know you’re not going to hit anybody.” |
| 如果导致伤害的风险更高的话，“让残骸落入海洋是相当普遍的做法，”航空航天公司的残骸轨道和大气层再入研究中心的执行主任马龙·佐尔格说。“这样，你就知道不会砸到任何人身上。” |
| Mr. Muelhaupt said that without details of the design of the Chinese rocket, it would not be possible to calculate an estimate of the risk. But “I’m very confident this is above the threshold” of 1-in-10,000 risk, he added. “Well above the threshold.” |
| 穆尔豪普特说，不知道中国火箭设计的细节，就不可能对残骸的风险进行估算。但“我确信风险超过了（万分之一的）阈值”，他补充说。“远高于这个阈值。” |
| The Long March 5B booster is about three times as massive as the UARS. A rough guess would be that it poses three times as much of the 1-in-3,200 risk that NASA had estimated for UARS, perhaps higher. |
| 长征五号B的助推器大约是UARS的三倍。一个粗略的估算是，长征五号B助推器残骸导致人员受伤的概率是NASA对UARS估计的万分之三的三倍，也许更高。 |
| “This is three UARSs in some sense,” Dr. McDowell said. The possibility of this booster injuring someone, he said, “could be as high as one in a few hundred.” |
| “从某种意义上说，这是三个UARS，”麦克道尔说。他表示，这个助推器伤人的可能性“可能高达几百分之一”。 |
| During a prelaunch broadcast on CGTN, a Chinese state media outlet, Xu Yansong, a former official at the China National Space Administration, referred to the 2020 incident in Ivory Coast. Since then, he said, “we improved our technologies” to bring the rocket stage down in an uninhabited region, but he gave no specifics. |
| 官方的中国环球电视网在发射前所做的报道中，中国国家航天局前官员许岩松提到了科特迪瓦2020年发生的事情。他说，那以后，为了让火箭级回落到无人居住的地区，“我们已改进了技术”，但他没有给出具体细节。 |
| The same series of events could soon play out yet again. |
| 同样的一系列事件可能很快会再次上演。 |
| In October, China will launch a second laboratory module named Mengtian to orbit to complete the assembly of Tiangong. It, too, will fly on another Long March 5B rocket. |
| 今年10月，中国将发射第二个实验舱梦天，从而完成天宫的组装。梦天也将搭载在另一枚长征五号B火箭上升空。 |
OK阅读网 版权所有(C)2017 | 联系我们