SpaceX火箭脫離火星，奔赴行星帶
Tesla sports car was launched by Falcon Heavy rocket on Tuesday.SpaceX mission originally planned to end in Mars-like orbit.
周二，特斯拉跑車由「獵鷹重型」送入太空。「獵鷹重型」原計劃終到類火星軌道。
發射後「獵鷹重型」卻偏離軌道，朝行星帶飛去。具體情況如何，請看以下新聞報道。
SpaceX rocket set to overshoot Mars and hurtle towards asteroid belt
SpaceX火箭脫離火星，奔赴行星帶
作者：Richard Luscombe in Miami
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/elon-musk-space-car-overshoot-mars-asteroid-belt
Elon Musk』s cherry red Tesla sports car and its dummy test pilot Starman were on a new course hurtling towards the asteroid belt on Wednesday after overshooting their planned trajectory.
埃隆·馬斯克的櫻桃紅特斯拉跑車和假人宇航員「斯塔曼」（Starman）在衝出預計的軌道後，於周三開始新的征程，向小行星帶進發。
Just hours after Tuesday』s spectacular launch from Florida of Falcon Heavy, the world』s most powerful space rocket, the billionaire founder of the private spaceflight company SpaceX admitted Starman had been a little heavy on the gas and would travel well beyond the intended target of Mars.
周二，全球運力最強的太空火箭——獵鷹重型火箭在佛羅里達州肯尼迪航天中心成功發射。幾個小時後，埃隆·馬斯克，這位私人太空運輸公司美國太空探索技術公司（SpaceX）的億萬創始人承認，Starman使用了很多燃氣，飛行終點可能會遠遠超出預定目標火星。
「Third burn successful. Exceeded Mars orbit and kept going to the Asteroid Belt,」 Musk said in a tweet that seemed to confirm the final destination of the mission had changed.
「第三次點火成功。Starman脫離了火星軌道並繼續飛向行星帶。」馬斯克在推文中如是寫道，似乎已經確認此次飛行任務的最終目的地已經改變。
Originally, the $100,000 electric Tesla Roadster, chosen by Musk as a whimsical experimental payload for the Falcon Heavy』s maiden flight, had been intended to reach a heliocentric orbit roughly the same distance from the sun as Mars, and orbit for a billion years.
起初，馬斯克想入非非，計劃選擇價值100，000美元的電動汽車「特斯拉路斯達」（Tesla Roadstar）作為「獵鷹重型」首飛的裝備，並將其送到與太陽和火星等距的日心軌道，繞飛10億年。
On its new trajectory, the world』s first car-turned-spacecraft will take a months-long cruise through deep space before taking its chances in the circumstellar asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where the risk of a catastrophic collision is greater.
在這條日心軌道上，這輛首個由汽車改裝的太空船在太空深處飛行數月後將有機會進入火星和木星之間一條行星帶，繞太陽運行；在該行星帶上，太空船發生大爆炸的風險會更高。
Some experts fear a bombardment of space radiation might even cause the Tesla to disintegrate before it gets there. 「All of the organics will be subjected to degradation by the various types of radiation that you will run into there,」 William Carroll, professor of chemistry at Indiana University, told livescience.com. 「As the bonds break, the car can literally fall apart.」
有專家擔心太空爆炸輻射會使特斯拉在抵達目的地前解體。「在那裡，一切有機生物都會因遭到種種輻射而退化，」印第安納大學化學教授威廉卡羅爾（William Carroll）告知livescience.com網站。「隨著接合處斷裂，這輛車定會瓦解。」
Meanwhile, mission managers at SpaceX, the upstart California-based company that hopes to use the demonstration flight to win contracts from Nasa, the US military and private space enterprise, have not confirmed whether the course-change was by accident or design.
與此同時，SpaceX的該項目經理並未確認太空船飛行路徑的改變屬於意外還是故意為之。SpaceX總部在加州，成立時間不長，想藉助此次飛行演示獲得與美國航空航天局（美國軍事和民用太空企業單位）的合同。
But at a press conference late on Tuesday, Musk said longer-range missions were always planned to be within the capabilities of the Falcon Heavy rocket, a 27-engine leviathan second only to Nasa』s long retired Apollo-era Saturn V in terms of sheer lifting power.
但是在發射當天晚些時候的新聞發布會上，馬斯克表示，更長距離的飛行任務定會依照「獵鷹重型」火箭的性能，量力而行。「獵鷹重型」是一架配有27台發動機的巨型太空船，單從運載能力來看，僅次於美國航空航天局退役已久的阿波羅時代土星五號運載火箭。
「It can do anything you want … it can launch things direct to Pluto or beyond, no stop needed, don』t even need gravity assist or anything,」 he said. 「Two or three Falcon Heavies would equal the payload of a Saturn V.」
「它可以滿足的你的任何要求……它可以直接將運載物發射到冥王星，甚至更遠，不需要中途停留，甚至不需要重力輔助，什麼都不需要，」他說。「兩到三個獵鷹重型的裝載量相當於一個土星五號。」
Musk also confirmed the loss after launch of the reusable central core booster, one of three of SpaceX』s smaller Falcon 9 rockets that were essentially strapped together to form the Falcon Heavy. The two side boosters returned safely to landing pads at the Kennedy Space Center, but the third, which had been intended to land on a barge in the Atlantic, crashed into the ocean at 300mph, 「showering the deck with shrapnel」, according to Musk.
馬斯克同時也證實了此次發射的這架可重複使用的核心助推器降落失敗所造成的損失，該助推器是SpaceX的三架「獵鷹9號」中型火箭之一，這三架助推器基本上是連接在一起的，共同構成了「獵鷹重型」。兩側的助推器均安全返回肯尼迪太空中心的發射台，但是位於計劃在大西洋一艘船上降落的中心助推器以300m/h的速度俯衝進了海洋之中，「飛濺的彈片落到了船的甲板上」，馬斯克說。
「We』re looking at the issue. The centre core obviously didn』t land on the drone ship,」 he told reporters. 「We have the video. It sounds like some pretty fun footage if the cameras didn』t get blown up as well.」
「我們正在處理這個問題。中心助推器顯然沒有落到自動駕駛船上，」他告訴記者。「我們錄了像，如果攝像機沒被炸的話，那倒像是個搞笑視頻。」
South African-born Musk, the billionaire former CEO of the online money transfer company PayPal, said he had invested more than half a billion dollars to get Falcon Heavy off the ground and hoped the success of its first flight would lead to more competition with private spaceflight rivals, including Blue Origin, owned by the Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos.
出生在南非的馬斯克是在線支付公司貝寶（PayPal）的前首席執行官，身家數十億，他說自己在獵鷹重型的投資超過了5億美元，希望它的成功首飛能夠提升公司的競爭力，與競爭對手，諸如亞馬遜巨頭傑夫·貝佐斯的藍色起源（Blue Origin）等私人太空運載企業等競爭。
「We want a new space race. Space races are exciting,」 he said. 「It』s going to encourage other companies and countries to say, 『Hey, if SpaceX, which is a commercial company, can do this, and nobody paid for Falcon Heavy, it was paid [for] with internal funds, then they could do it too.』」
「我們想在太空產業進行全新的競爭。這種競爭會很刺激，」他說。「這會刺激到其他公司和別的國家，他們會說，『嘿，如果SpaceX這家商業公司能做到這一點，沒有人為獵鷹重型投資，他們用的是自己的錢，然後這些公司或者國家也能成功。』」
初譯：張贏月
審校：何源
定稿：韓建松
本篇雙語譯文出自有譯思雙語翻譯組Transyes Volunteers (TYV)。
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