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| JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER — Thirty years ago, the Chinese government initiated a secret plan for its space program, including a key goal of building a space station by 2020. | 酒泉卫星发射中心——30年前，中国政府启动了一项秘密太空计划，其中包括到2020年建立一个空间站的主要目标。 |
| At the time, the country was 11 years from sending its first astronaut into space, and its space efforts were going through a rough patch: Chinese rockets failed in 1991, 1992, 1995 and twice in 1996. The worst failure, in 1996, was a rocket that tipped to the side, flew in the wrong direction and exploded 22 seconds after launch, showering a Chinese village with falling wreckage and flaming fuel that killed or injured at least 63 people. | 当时距离中国将首名航天员送入太空还有11年的时间，且它的航天事业正在经历一个艰难的阶段：中国的火箭在1991年、1992年、1995年和1996年（两次）先后遭遇发射失败。最严重的是1996年的一次发射，火箭向一侧倾斜，飞向错误的方向，并在发射22秒后爆炸，残骸和燃烧的燃料四溅，落在了一个中国村庄，造成至少63人死伤。 |
| While grand spaceflight plans of some nations have ended up many years behind schedule, China completed the assembly in orbit of its Tiangong space station in late October, only 22 months later than planned. And on Nov. 29, the Shenzhou 15 mission blasted off from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center deep in the Gobi Desert and took three astronauts to the space station to begin permanent occupancy of the outpost. | 一些国家的宏大航天计划经历了数年的拖延，但中国在10月底完成了天宫空间站的轨道组装，仅比计划晚了22个月。11月29日，神舟十五号从位于戈壁滩的中国酒泉卫星发射中心发射升空，并将三名航天员送往空间站，开始长期在轨驻留。 |
| These human spaceflight achievements, combined with recent space probes to the moon and Mars, add to the evidence that China is running a steady space marathon rather than competing in a head-to-head space race with the United States. That China’s space program is making good time toward its long-term goals was reinforced during a rare visit for foreign media to the country’s heavily guarded desert rocket base for the Nov. 29 launch — including lengthy interviews with senior Chinese space officials by in for The New York Times. | 这些载人航天成就，加上近些年对月球和火星的太空探索，进一步证明了中国正在稳步进行一场太空马拉松，而不是与美国进行正面交锋的太空竞赛。中国的太空计划正在向其长期目标大步迈进，在外媒罕见地获邀造访这个戒备森严的沙漠火箭基地，观摩11月29日的发射的过程中，这一点得到了进一步印证，《纽约时报》在此期间对中国高级航天官员进行了长时间的采访。 |
| The Pentagon predicted in August that China would surpass American capabilities in space as soon as 2045. | 五角大楼方面在今年8月预测，中国最快于2045年超越美国的太空能力。 |
| “I think it’s entirely possible they could catch up and surpass us, absolutely,” said Lt. General Nina M. Armagno, the staff director of the United States Space Force, at a conference in Sydney the day before the launch of Shenzhou 15. “The progress they’ve made has been stunning — stunningly fast.” | “我认为他们完全有可能赶超我们，绝对有可能，”美国太空军参谋长尼娜·M·阿玛尼奥中将在神舟十五号发射前一天在悉尼举行的一次会议上说道。“他们的进步令人震惊——速度快得惊人。” |
| China’s program left the starting line in 1986, decades after the height of the U.S.-Soviet space race. That was when Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader then, approved Project 863, a science and technology development program that included plans for a crewed spacecraft. | 中国的太空计划始于1986年，彼时美苏太空竞赛的高潮已经过去了几十年。中国时任最高领导人邓小平批准了863计划，那是一个高科技研究发展计划，其中包括载人航天器。 |
| The program began to pick up speed in 1992 with Project 921. “The goal set back then was to complete the construction of the Chinese space station around 2020,” said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s crewed space program. | 1992年，随着921工程的启动，中国的太空计划开始提速。“当年定的目标就是要在2020年前后完成中国空间站的建造，”中国载人航天工程总设计师周建平说。 |
| Despite initial embarrassment as rockets kept blowing up instead of reaching space, China picked up the pace in the years that followed. American companies, looking for an inexpensive way to put satellites into space, helped China fix its rocket quality problems. In 2003, Boeing ended up agreeing to pay $32 million in fines for violations of American arms exports controls by a company that it had acquired, Hughes Space and Communications. | 尽管最初由于火箭不断爆炸而没有进入太空让中国陷入尴尬境地，但在接下来的一些年里，中国加快了步伐。四处寻找能以成本低廉的方式将卫星送入太空的美国企业帮助中国解决了火箭质量问题。2003年，波音最终同意缴纳3200万美元的罚款，因为它收购的休斯航天通信公司违反了美国的武器出口管制。 |
| Congress ended up banning American space agencies in 2011 from spending any money to cooperate in space with China, except in limited circumstances. The ban, enacted in response to worries about technology theft and human rights violations, blocked any chance of inviting China to join the International Space Station. | 国会最终在2011年禁止美国的航天机构动用任何资金与中国展开太空方面的合作，仅有少数例外。这项禁令是出于对窃取技术和侵犯人权的担忧而颁布的，完全截断了邀请中国加入国际空间站的机会。 |
| Frank Wolf, the retired Republican congressman who pushed through the legislation, said in a recent email that he still believed the legislation was needed. “Bottom line, we should not be collaborating with China,” he said. | 推动这项立法的退休共和党议员弗兰克·沃尔夫最近在一封电子邮件中表示，他依然认为此举是必要的。“归根结底，我们不该与中国合作，”他说。 |
| China has also tapped into Russian expertise extensively over the years, going back to the founding of Jiuquan in 1958 as a military base for the development of China’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles. Spacecraft carrying the Shenzhou missions strongly resemble Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. | 从1958年将酒泉定为中国首批洲际弹道导弹研发的军事基地开始，中国多年来还广泛利用了俄罗斯的专业知识。承载神舟任务的飞船与俄罗斯的联盟号飞船看起来非常相似。 |
| The country’s space officials say that every component of their spacecraft is made in China. But they acknowledge having benefited from cooperation over the years with their northern neighbor. | 中国航天官员宣称飞船的所有部件均由中国制造。但他们也承认，多年来与北方邻国的合作令人受益。 |
| “China’s manned spaceflight has also had a lot of exchanges with Russia in the process of development — 100 percent localization does not mean that there is no exchange or cooperation,” Mr. Zhou said. | “中国载人航天在发展的过程中也和俄罗斯有过很多交流，百分之百的国产化并不意味着我们在技术上不交流不合作，”周建平表示。 |
| China is now pursuing its own programs and has not partnered with Russia for its new space station. | 中国目前正在推进自己的航天项目，没有与俄罗斯合作建设新的空间站。 |
| Having already made big strides in space in recent years, a half dozen Chinese space officials outlined their plans for the coming years in interviews at the launch center, which sits in a vast, frozen expanse of gray gravel in northwestern China, almost four hours’ drive from the nearest large town. | 近年来，中国太空事业已经取得长足进展，六名中国航天官员在发射中心接受采访时介绍了未来几年的规划。该中心坐落于中国西北部一片广袤冰冷的灰色荒漠中，距离最近的大城市有近四小时的车程。 |
| The Tiangong space station weighs nearly 100 tons. That is barely more than the American Skylab that launched in 1973, and it is less than the Mir space station that the Soviet Union began assembling in space in 1986. | 天宫空间站重达近百吨，比1973年发射的美国天空实验室空间站略重，轻于苏联1986年开始在太空组装的和平号空间站。 |
| Tiangong is being portrayed by state media to the Chinese public as a three-bedroom home in the sky. Still, it is a lot smaller than the International Space Station, which is about 450 tons and has sleeping space for seven. | 官媒向中国公众描述的天宫空间站是一个“三居室”的天空之家。尽管如此，它还是比国际空间站小得多，后者重约450吨，有可供七人使用的睡眠空间。 |
| What the Chinese space station may lack in heft, Chinese officials are trying to offset with efficient management of space — a polite phrase for crowding in astronauts and experiments. But space experts in the West have also suggested that the I.S.S. is bigger than it needs to be, particularly given the miniaturization of computers and other scientific equipment since its development began in 1994. | 或许该空间站重量不足，但中国官员正在试图用高效的空间管理来弥补——这是把宇航员的生活环境和实验环境挤在一起的礼貌说辞。但西方航天专家也表示，国际空间站的规模超出实际需要，特别是考虑到自1994年开始建设以来，计算机和其他科学设备都已经小型化。 |
| Starting with the arrival of the three Shenzhou 15 astronauts on Nov. 30, China now plans for its space station to be occupied continuously by at least three astronauts. That will expand to six astronauts during their weeklong overlap every six months when a replacement crew arrives — still short of the International Space Station’s usual complement of seven astronauts. | 从11月30日三名神舟十五号宇航员抵达空间站开始，中国现在计划维持空间站始终有至少三名宇航员入驻的状态。每六个月都会有轮替人员抵达，在为期一周的交接期，空间站容纳的宇航员将达到六人——仍然低于国际空间站常规容纳的七人。 |
| Ji Qiming, assistant director general of the China Manned Space Program’s engineering office, said that the Shenzhou 15 astronauts would first debug equipment aboard the newly completed space station. They will “complete the unlocking, installation and testing for 15 scientific experiment racks and carry out more than 40 space science experiments and technical tests in the field of space science research and applications, space medicine, space technology and so forth,” he said, without providing specifics. | 中国载人航天工程办公室主任助理季启明表示，神舟十五号宇航员将首先在新建成的空间站上调试设备。他们将“完成15个科学实验机柜解锁、安装和测试，开展空间科学研究与应用航天医学、航天技术等领域的40余项空间科学实验和技术实验”，他说道，但没有披露细节。 |
| With efficient space management, the Chinese space station will offer four-fifths as many racks for experiments as the International Space Station does, Mr. Zhou said. One of the experiments will be an extremely cold atomic clock. | 周建平表示，通过高效的空间管理，中国空间站提供的实验机柜数量将会是国际空间站的五分之四。其中一项实验内容将是极冷原子钟。 |
| “This can play a very good role in some basic physics research, such as non-Newtonian gravitation and gravitational redshift” research, he said. | “这个可以对一些基础物理方面的研究起到很好的作用，比如说非牛顿引力、引力红移等，”他说。 |
| As soon as next year, the space station will also have a separately launched telescope, Xuntian, orbiting nearby to survey the universe at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths — in many ways, a more sophisticated version of NASA’s 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope. | 最快到明年，该空间站还将单独发射巡天号空间望远镜，在附近轨道上以光学和紫外线波长观测宇宙——在许多方面上，这种观测要比美国宇航局运行了32年之久的哈勃空间望远镜更加精密。 |
| “The characteristic of the sky survey telescope is that it can do large-scale sky surveys — we plan to complete surveying 42 percent of the sky’s area in 10 years,” Mr. Zhou said. “We expect that it can obtain some very important results, especially that our telescope should be unique in the world in the ultraviolet wavelengths.” | “巡天望远镜的特点就是可以做大范围的巡天测量，我们计划是用10年的时间完成大概42%的天区的巡天，”周建平说。“我们可以期待它可以获得一些很重要的成果，特别是我们这个望远镜在紫外波段，应该是全球独一无二的。” |
| The Shenzhou 15 team are set to conduct three or four spacewalks in the coming months as well, Mr. Ji said. They will also use a new robotic cargo airlock that allows scientific experiments to be put out into the frozen vacuum of space. | 季启明表示，神舟十五号的乘组人员还将在未来几个月进行三到四次太空行走。他们还将用上新型货物气闸舱，可以在冰冷的太空真空中进行科学实验。 |
| “It will reach a very low level of temperature so that we can study some very important phenomena in fundamental physics, such as Bose-Einstein condensate,” Mr. Zhou said, referring to a condensed state of matter only found at temperatures close to absolute zero. | “它会达到一个非常低的温度的水平，这样我们可以研究基础物理中的一些非常重要的现象，比如玻色–爱因斯坦凝聚这一类的问题，”周建平说，指的是在接近绝对零度的状态下才能发现的物质凝聚态。 |
| Despite limited direct cooperation, Chinese officials say that they have learned important lessons by watching their American counterparts. Chinese officials are glad, for example, that they did not follow an early decision by NASA in the 1970s: to build a large but costly space plane like the space shuttle. | 尽管直接合作有限，中国官员仍表示，通过观察美国同行的工作，他们已经吸取了重要教训。例如，中国官员对于没有遵循美国宇航局在20世纪70年代的一项早期决定感到满意：即打造一架像航天飞机一样大型但昂贵的太空飞机。 |
| Instead, they have been impressed by the work of Elon Musk’s rocket company. | 相反，他们对伊隆·马斯克的火箭公司的成就印象深刻。 |
| “In 2009, when I first learned about SpaceX in a meeting in the U.S., I was surprised: I never heard of this company when I was in the U.S. before, how did it grow into such a large company so quickly,” Mr. Zhou said. | 周建平说：“我最早和SpaceX接触，是在2009年在美国的一个会上……我很惊讶：我以前在美国的时候从来没有听说过这家公司，它竟然这么快就成长为这么大的公司。” |
| From watching SpaceX, China’s space officials see value in making reusable rockets and spacecraft. | 通过SpaceX，中国航天官员看到了制造可重复使用的火箭和航天器的价值。 |
| “The space shuttle is very complicated,” Mr. Zhou said, while the capsules China and SpaceX are using are “relatively easier technologically to ensure reliability and safety, and it is also more economical.” He later asserted that, “within a few years, we will be able to achieve the reuse of re-entry capsules for our new generation spaceships.” | “航天飞机非常复杂，”周建平说，而中国和SpaceX使用的太空舱“技术上更容易保证可靠，安全也更为经济”。他随后还断言，“我相信几年内我们就可以实现我们的新一代飞船的返回舱的重复使用。” |
| Developing reusable rocket technology in China has become even more important following considerable international criticism of its Long March 5B rockets. China allowed massive core boosters from these rockets to fall out of control to Earth while sending each of the three modules of the Tiangong space station into orbit. | 中国长征五号乙火箭遭到国际上的大量批评后，开发可重复使用的火箭技术变得更加重要。中国在将天宫空间站的三个模块分别送入轨道的过程中，让这些火箭的大型核心助推器不受控制地落到地球上。 |
| R. Nicholas Burns, the United States ambassador to China, said in an interview that he had encouraged China “to be more cautious about the uncontrolled re-entry of large rocket bodies.” | 美国驻华大使尼古拉斯·伯恩斯在接受采访时表示，他曾敦促中国“在大型火箭体失控重返大气层方面更加谨慎”。 |
| China has bristled at criticism of the Long March 5B’s core boosters. One caused damage during a test flight in 2020 when it fell in West Africa, but none of the rocket stages have hurt or killed anyone so far. At least one more launch of the rocket is planned in 2023, when the Xuntian telescope goes to orbit. | 中国对长征五号乙运载火箭的核心助推器受到的批评大为不满。其中一枚在2020年的试飞中坠落在西非，造成了损失，但到目前为止，尚无任何一级火箭造成人员伤亡。在2023年，至少还有一次火箭发射计划，届时将把巡天号太空望远镜将进入轨道。 |
| Chinese officials say they don’t just want to avoid uncontrolled re-entry, but to reuse rockets. | 中国官员表示，他们不仅要避免不受控制的火箭返回，还要重复使用火箭。 |
| “We will take reuse as an important technical goal of our projects — reuse will bring technical challenges, but it will bring better economics and will also enable better development of the aerospace industry,” Mr. Zhou said | “我们都会将重复使用作为我们工程的一个重要的技术目标。重复使用会带来技术上的挑战，但是它会带来更好的经济性，也会带来航天产业的一个更好的发展，”周建平说 |
| Rong Yi, chief designer of the Long March 2F carrier rocket that took the Shenzhou 15 mission into space, said that on Nov. 26, China had tested a prototype for a reusable rocket booster that burned liquid oxygen and kerosene. Even before then, she said, China had been working hard on steering technologies to make sure that a reusable rocket would land in a specific location. | 将神舟十五号任务送入太空的长征二号F运载火箭总设计师容易表示，11月26日，中国测试了一种烧液氧煤油的可重复使用火箭助推器原型。她说，甚至在此之前，中国就一直在努力研发转向技术，以确保可重复使用的火箭能够降落在特定位置。 |
| Additionally, He Yu, chief commander of crewed spaceship systems at the China Academy of Space Technology, said that, in May 2020, China had already tested a reusable prototype for a spaceship capsule. | 此外，中国空间技术研究院载人飞船系统总指挥何宇表示，2020年5月，中国已经测试了可重复使用的飞船舱原型。 |
| The effort to develop reusable spacecraft is running parallel to Chinese officials’ plans to put astronauts on the moon. They have not announced a precise timetable but have previously hinted that it would not happen later than 2030. | 可重复使用航天器的开发工作与中国官方将宇航员送上月球的计划同步进行。他们尚未公布确切的时间表，但此前曾暗示不会晚于2030年。 |
| Mr. Ji and Mr. Zhou each said that considerable work had already been done on a crewed lunar lander. | 季启明和周建平均表示，在载人登月器方面已经做了大量工作。 |
| “These works have laid a solid foundation for the manned lunar exploration project,” Mr. Ji said during a news conference at the Jiuquan launch center, before making an allusion to Chinese mythology: “I believe the dream of Chinese people to embrace the moon from the ninth heaven will come true in the near future.” | “这些工作为载人月球探测工程奠定了坚实的基础，”季启明在酒泉发射中心的新闻发布会上说，然后他引用了中国神话：“我相信中国人九天揽月的梦想将在不远将来成为现实。” |
| But sending a person to the moon has been done. Sending a person to Mars is an even bigger prize for China. It has placed an emphasis on shortening the duration of such a trip, perhaps with nuclear propulsion instead of conventional rocket engines. Officials are also determined that any journey will be a round-trip from which all astronauts return alive and in good health. | 但是载人登月已经有人做到了。把人送上火星对中国来说是一个更大的奖赏。它着重于缩短飞行时间，也许会使用核推进而不是传统的火箭发动机。官员们还确定，每次任务都将是往返飞行，所有宇航员都将活着并健康地返回。 |
| “Technically, it is feasible in theory, but it has huge challenges in engineering because the scale is very large, we have estimated at least 900 days of travel” based on current technologies, Mr. Zhou said. | “技术上从理论上讲都可行，但是它工程上有巨大的挑战，因为规模非常大，我们估算过至少900多天的旅程行程，”周建平说。 |
| With nuclear propulsion, the trip could be trimmed to 500 days, he said, without predicting whether China would adopt that approach. | 他说，有了核动力，行程可以缩短到500天，但没有预测中国是否会采用这种方法。 |
| Huang Weifen, chief designer of China’s astronaut program, said she was looking at ways to make sure that astronauts could stay healthy for a 500-day trip. | 中国航天员计划总设计师黄伟芬表示，她正在寻找方法确保航天员在500天的旅程中保持健康。 |
| “It is another qualitative leap in flying — a very big challenge for people in terms of the medical issues, the psychological issues and living guarantees,” she said. | “它又是一个质的飞跃，对人来讲非常大的一个挑战，就是医学方面的问题，心理方面的问题，”她说。 |
| Despite all these difficulties, China is intent on sticking to its long-term plan for space. | 尽管存在所有这些困难，中国仍决心坚持其长期的太空计划。 |
| “Landing on the moon, landing on Mars, are very significant progress in the development of human civilization,” Mr. Zhou said. “We may understand and realize its further value step by step. But its role in the development of our human civilization is huge, so it is worth our efforts — it’s worth fighting for.” | “我认为登陆火星登陆月球也好，登陆火星也好，它是人类文明发展的一个非常重大的进步，”周建平说。“当然说它进一步的作用，我们可能还要一步步地看，一步步地才能去认识它，才能兑现它，但是它本身对于我们人类文明的发展的作用是巨大的，所以值得我们去努力，值得我们去奋斗。” |
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