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One small step back to where we started
注： “One small step back to where we started”是首届《参考消息》读者译文大赛文章要求参赛者翻译的文章。本人水平有限，不敢参加啦。不过看到这样一篇有一定挑战性的文章，不禁手痒，于是在这里献上自己的译文版本，与翻译爱好者们交流切磋。 “一千个人心中有一千个哈姆雷特。”同样，一千个翻译就会有一千种译文。欢迎翻译爱好者们不吝指正。 One small step back to where we started 重返起点的一小步 The Apollo missions were supposed to reveal the truth about the Moon. In fact, they taught us about the Earth – and ourselves 阿波罗任务的本意是揭示月球的真相。可实际上，它们要告诉我们的却是地球和我们自己。 Mark Mason 马克•梅森 In July 1969, soon after their return from the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were shown footage of the world’s reaction to the lunar landing. They saw the US newscaster Walter Cronkite wiping away his tears; people gathered around televisions from China to Brazil; pavements outside TV shops crammed as people watched in awe. Aldrin turned to Armstrong. “Neil,” he said, “we missed the whole thing”. 1969 年 7 月，从月球返回后不久，有人给尼尔•阿姆斯特朗和巴兹;奥尔德林放了一段录像，让他们看看全世界人们对登月的反应。他们看到美国新闻主播沃尔特;克朗凯特正在擦拭自己的泪花；从中国到巴西，人们聚集在电视机旁；当人们怀着敬畏的神情观看时，电视机商店外面的人行道被围得水泄不通。奥尔德林转向阿姆斯特朗。“尼尔，”他说道，“我们错过了这一切”。 That comment (reminiscent of George Harrison’s complaint that the Beatles felt left out because “We were the only people who never got to see the Beatles”) reveals the surprising truth about the Apollo missions: they weren’t about the Moon. They were about the Earth. 那个评论（它令人回想起乔治;哈里森的抱怨——甲壳虫乐队觉得自己被忽略了，因为“我们是唯一从来没有看过甲壳虫乐队的人”）揭示了令人惊讶的阿波罗任务的真相：它们并非月球之行，而是地球之旅。 The clues had been there from the start, when the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to leave their home planet’s orbit. Orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve 1968, fulfilling dreams as old as mankind itself, their real wonder was not at the dead grey planet beneath them, but at the vibrant blue globe in the distance. The first three men to see the Moon up close soon realised — with a much deeper sense of reverence — that they were the first three men to see the Earth from a distance. Witnessing an earthrise made them feel humble. They read the opening chapters of Genesis to a worldwide audience of millions, signing off with, “Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.” 从一开始当阿波罗 8 号的全体乘员成为第一批离开其所在星球轨道的人时，这一切就不言而喻了。在 1968 年平安夜环绕月球轨道飞行，实现了与人类自身一样古老的梦想，真正使他们感到惊奇的不是他们下方那颗死气沉沉的灰色行星，而是远方那个生机勃勃的蓝色地球。第一批近距离观看月球的三个人不久就意识到——怀着更深的敬意——他们是第一批远距离注视地球的三个人。亲眼目睹“地出”奇观让他们觉得自己很卑微。他们向全世界亿万观众朗读了《创世纪》中的开篇，在结束时说道，“圣诞快乐，愿上帝保佑你们所有人，在美好地球上的所有人。” Over the next four years, Apollo taught us what it means to be human: in a word, restless. Curiosity is never satisfied, it merely finds new targets. Quite how quickly the shift can occur was learnt by Pete Conrad, the third man to walk on the Moon (and the first to fall over on it). Once Armstrong and Aldrin had claimed the prize, no one was interested in Apollo 12. Conrad later appeared in an American Express advert of famous Americans nobody recognised. (Others included Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny.) Yet in many ways Conrad’s was the most interesting Apollo mission of all. His fellow moonwalker, Al Bean, never the most naturally gifted astronaut, compensated with sheer hard work. Finally standing on the lunar surface, he threw his silver Nasa badge into the distance, knowing that the moonwalk had earned him a gold one. But as they flew back to Earth, he turned to Conrad and admitted disappointment in the Moon itself: “It’s kind of like the song Is That All There Is?” Another timeless truth: achievements themselves aren’t what count, it’s the fact that you worked for them. 在接下来的四年里，阿波罗告诉我们它对人类意味着什么：那就是，不得安宁。好奇心永远得不到满足，只不过它找到了新的目标。皮特;康拉德，第三个踏上月球的人（而且是第一个在月球上跌倒的人）总算体会到这一切改变得有多快。一旦阿姆斯特朗和奥尔德林抢去了风头，再也没人对阿波罗 12 号感兴趣了。后来康拉德在美国运通推出的“默默无闻的美国人”榜上有名。（其他人还包括《兔八哥》的配音演员梅尔•布兰科）。然而，从很多角度上讲，康拉德的登月之行才是所有阿波罗任务中最有趣的任务。和他一起登月的伙伴阿兰;比恩，绝对不是最有天赋的宇航员，完全依赖于勤能补拙。当他终于站在了月球的表面，他把美国国家航空航天（NASA）颁发的银质徽章扔向远方，因为他知道在月球上行走已经为他赢得了金质徽章。但是，当他们飞回地球时，他转向康拉德，承认自己对月球本身有点失望：“它有点像那首叫《一切不过如此？》的歌曲。”另一个永恒的真相就是：成绩本身并不能说明什么问题，重要的是你为之付出的努力。 When Bean returned to Earth he would sit in shopping malls, simply to marvel at the variety of human life. And he has never again complained about the weather: “I’m just glad there is weather.” As so often, a journey into the unknown had revealed more about the traveller’s home than about the destination. 当比恩重返地球之后，他总是坐在购物中心，惊叹于丰富多彩的人类生活。从此以后，他再也没有抱怨过天气：“有天气存在，我就觉得很高兴啦。”如同经常发生的那样，一段通往未知世界的旅程展示的更多的是旅行者的家乡，而不是其目的地。 Virtually every Apollo astronaut came back with a deep sense of the Earth’s fragility. Ed Mitchell, Moonwalker No 6: “When we see ourselves in this bigger perspective — call it the ET point of view, the God point of view — a shift takes place in your perception and you start to think quite differently.” Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke describes Earth as “hanging in space like a jewel”. “People are always asking what we discovered when we went to the Moon,” says Dick Gordon, of Apollo 12. “What we discovered was the Earth.” 实际上，每一位阿波罗登月宇航员返回之后，都会深深地感到地球的脆弱。艾德加•米切尔，第六位登月的宇航员，曾说过：“当我们从这个更大的视角来审视自己——我们称之为“外星人视角”、“上帝视角”——你的看法就会发生变化，你就会开始用截然不同的方式考虑问题。”阿波罗 16 号的宇航员查尔斯;杜克将地球描述为像“孤悬在太空的一颗宝石”。“人们总是问我们登上月球之后发现了什么，”阿波罗 12 号的宇航员迪克;戈尔登说道。“其实我们发现的是地球。” The discovery gave a big boost to the nascent Green movement. Sir Jonathon Porritt cites the “deep and lasting effect” that Apollo had on “many environmentalists — including me”. Friends of the Earth was founded in the same year that man first walked on the Moon. The inaugural Earth Day happened a year later. Everyone seemed to agree with Michael Collins’s thought as he splashed back down into the Pacific with Armstrong and Aldrin: “Nice ocean you got here, planet Earth.” 这一发现极大地推动了当时还处于萌芽状态的绿色运动。乔纳森;波利特先生提到了阿波罗给“包括我在内的很多环境保护主义者”所带来的“深远影响”。在人类首次登上月球的同一年，环保组织“地球之友”成立。一年之后“世界地球日”创立。每个人看起来都同意当时迈克尔•柯林斯脑海中闪过的念头（当时他正与阿姆斯特朗和奥尔德林一起溅落到太平洋里）：“地球啊，你拥有多么美丽的海洋！” Politically, too, there was a shift. The Earth from space looks just like a map — except without the national borders. Collins remembers people of every nation saying to him, “‘We did it’ — it was a wonderful thing.” Ed Mitchell, on his way back from the Moon, realised that “the molecules of my body and of the spacecraft and of my partners were manufactured in some ancient generation of stars — and that was an overwhelming sense of oneness and connectedness”. Inspired by the landings, René Dubos coined the phrase “Think globally, act locally”. T minus zero for Apollo was T plus one for globalisation. 政治上也同样发生了微妙的变化。从太空中看，地球就像一幅地图——只不过没有国界而已。柯林斯记得每个民族的人都对他说，“‘我们成功了’——这真是个奇迹。”在他从月球返回的路上，艾德加•米切尔意识到“我身体的分子、宇宙飞船的分子以及我同伴的分子都是在某个古代的恒星上制造出来的——那是一种极其强烈、融为一体的感觉”。受登月之行的启发，勒内;杜博斯创造出了“心怀全球、立足本土”这一警句。阿波罗的倒计时揭开了全球化的序幕。 Yet despite the astronauts’ protestations that the Moon itself was a letdown, which of us, given the chance, wouldn’t want to go there? The Chinese are planning missions of their own, and the commercial investment being ploughed into space tourism proves just how much we yearn for new experiences. So much so that we resent anyone who dampens our excitement. 然而，尽管宇航员们声称对月球本身感到失望，但是如果有机会，我们中又有谁不愿意到那里去呢？中国人正在计划他们自己的登月任务，对太空旅行的商业投资也证明了我们是多么渴望拥有全新的体验。这种渴望是如此强烈，以至于我们会怨恨任何给我们的激情泼冷水的人。 Pete Conrad used to say he was prouder of his work on the Skylab missions than his walk on the Moon. “Some people even get mad,” he said. “‘What do you mean, the Moon isn’t the biggest thing in your life?’ I say: ‘Well, it isn’t’. They think, ‘Well, it should be’. I say: ‘Why? I’m the guy that did this’.” Maybe life is one long “wet paint” sign: you don’t believe it until you reach out and touch. 皮特•康拉德过去常说，与在月球上漫步相比，让他更加感到自豪的是在执行太空实验任务时所从事的工作。“有些人甚至都疯了，”他说。“‘你这是什么意思，难道月球不是你一生中最重要的事情吗？’我说：‘嗯，它不是。’他们认为，‘哼，它应该是’。我说：‘为什么？我才是有切身体会的人啊’。”也许生活就像一个长长的“油漆未干”标志：只有当你亲手触摸之后，你才会相信上面写的是真的。 Certainly, Dave Scott, of Apollo 15, thought so. Standing on the Moon, he voiced his thoughts to Houston: “I realise there’s a fundamental truth to our nature: man must explore.” Home is never far from our thoughts, though. How many times have you looked forward for months to a holiday, only to find that on day three you’re already dreaming of your own bed? But when you return, the process starts all over again. This idea of life as a perpetual cycle seems particularly comforting in a recession. Even though we’ve overreached (and overborrowed), and been reminded of some home truths, we know that one day we’ll reach out once more. 当然，阿波罗 15 号的宇航员大卫•斯科特也这么认为。站在月球上，他对休斯敦地面指挥中心道出了他的心声：“我认识到自然界有一个基本真理：人类必须探索。”尽管故乡永远栖息在我们心灵深处。有多少次你连续数月期待假期，到头来只是发现在假期的第三天你就已经开始渴望躺在自己的床上？可是，当你回家之后，这种想法又开始萦绕在你心头、挥之不去。生活就像一个永无休止的循环，这种想法在经济衰退期似乎特别能安慰人心。即使我们已经走得太远（借债过多），有人给我们提醒一些有关家园的真理，但是我们知道，总有一天，我们将再一次踏上征程。 When Bean retired from Nasa he became an artist. His paintings of the lunar landscape, which fetch tens of thousands of dollars, bear the lessons of his time as an astronaut. Just as he worked hard to reach the Moon, now he works hard to perfect his painting. “That’s what I tell myself when the colours don’t come out right or it hasn’t worked like I thought it would: ‘That’s why they call it art’.” 当比恩从 NASA 退休之后，他成了一名画家。他的月球风景画，售价数万美元一幅，承载着他当宇航员时的经历。如同他过去为登月而发奋拼搏一样，现在他为提高他的绘画技艺而努力拼搏。“当色彩不对或者跟我当初的设想不一样时，我就会对自己说：‘那就是他们为什么会称之为艺术的原因’。” Another of Bean’s thoughts sums up the very essence of the Apollo missions, indeed of all human travel: that it isn’t about where you’re going, it’s about who you are. “Everybody came back just more like I knew them. I think maybe success doesn’t change you as much as reveal you.” 比恩的另外一个想法恰如其分地总结出了阿波罗任务（其实是所有人类旅行）的真谛：它与你的目的地无关，而是在于你是谁。“每个人返回之后，我就觉得他们更像我的老相识了。我认为可能成功对一个人的改变远不如其所展示的本性。” Which is why the greatest reason to celebrate this 40th anniversary isn’t scientific or environmental or political; it’s personal. The next time you go down a footpath just to see where it leads, or when the only thing that will stop your baby crying is taking it for a drive, remember the 12 men who stood on the Moon and looked at Earth. As T. S. Eliot put it: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. 这就是为什么庆祝登月 40 周年的最大理由不是科学、环境或政治，而在于人性。下一次，当您只是为了弄清楚某条小路的走向而沿着它前行，或者只有当驾车出游才能让您的婴儿止哭时，请记住那 12 个站在月球上眺望地球的人。正如托马斯•斯特恩斯•艾略特所写的诗句： 我们不应停止探索 我们一切探索的终点 将是抵达我们的起点 而且是与此地首次谋面 |
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