新发现行星重燃星际旅行热

OUT THERE

Discovery Rekindles Wish for a Journey to the Stars

By DENNIS OVERBYE October 29, 2012

新发现行星重燃星际旅行热

DENNIS OVERBYE 报道 2012年10月29日

What will you wear to Alpha Centauri?

你会穿什么衣服去半人马座阿尔法星系(Alpha Centauri)?

The news last week that there is a planet circling Alpha Centauri B, only a little more than four light-years away, set off an epidemic of daydreaming among the astronomical and sci-fi set, me among them.上周，新闻报道称，发现了一颗围绕半人马座阿尔法B星(Alpha Centauri B)运转的行星，它距离我们只有四光年多一点。这一发现令天文学家和科幻迷不禁为之神往，我也是其中一员。

For people who believe that interstellar voyages, either for people or for robots, are in the future, Alpha Centauri, a triple-star system that is the Sun’s nearest known neighbor, has always loomed large and close as a destination. It was the home of the mythical jungle world Pandora in James Cameron’s epic “Avatar,” for example.半人马座阿尔法星系是一个三恒星系统，也是距离太阳系最近的已知恒星系。对那些相信人类或者机器人将在未来展开星际旅行的人来说，这个星系一直是一个遥遥在望的目的地，引人瞩目。例如，詹姆斯·卡梅隆(James Cameron)执导的史诗巨片《阿凡达》(Avatar)当中，那个神话般的丛林秘境潘多拉星球(Pandora)，就在半人马座阿尔法星系。

Elwood H. Smith

The new planet doesn’t have jungles, giant blue-skinned cats or, as far as we know, the magical mineral unobtainium. It is, rather, a hellish unlivable blob of lava probably about the size of Earth, only four million short miles from the fires of Alpha Centauri B, the second brightest star in the system.这颗新发现的行星上没有丛林，也没有蓝色皮肤的大猫。至少据我们现在所知，那里也没有神奇的矿物难得素（《阿凡达》中产自潘多拉星的矿物质——译注)。相反，它是一个岩浆横流、环境极端严酷的星球，大小可能与地球相仿，距离半人马座阿尔法星系第二亮星——半人马座阿尔法B星喷发的热焰，只有短短400万英里(约合643万公里)。

But if astronomers have learned anything over the last few years from devices like the Kepler satellite, it is that small planets come in packs. There is plenty of room in the system for more planets, habitable ones.不过，如果天文学家在过去几年中已通过像开普勒卫星(Kepler satellite)这样的探测工具了解到任何规律，那就是，小型的行星总是集群出现。半人马座阿尔法星系有足够的空间容纳更多的行星，包括宜居的行星。

“I think we should drop everything and send a probe there,” said Sara Seager, an astronomer at M.I.T., echoing a call made last year by the exoplanet pioneer Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley.麻省理工学院(MIT)天文学家萨拉·西格(Sara Seager)说，“我认为，我们应当放下手边的一切事务，向这个行星发射探测器。”她的观点呼应了加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)系外行星先锋派学者杰夫·马西(Geoff Marcy)的呼吁。

There is in fact somebody in charge of doing something just like that. Her name is Mae Jemison, a former astronaut, engineer, dancer, actor and entrepreneur. This year she, in conjunction with the nonprofit foundation Icarus Interstellar, won a $500,000 government grant to set up 100 Year Starship, an organization that is to come up with a business plan for interstellar travel.实际上，确实有人在负责类似计划的实施。她的名字是梅·杰米森(Mae Jemison)，她是一位前宇航员、工程师、舞蹈家、演员和企业家。今年，她联合非营利基金会伊卡洛斯星际组织(Icarus Interstellar)，获得了50万美元（约合315万元人民币）的政府经费，用以建立百年星舰(100 Year Starship)组织。这个组织将拿出一个星际旅行的商业计划。

Darpa, the government agency that helped invent the Internet and now wants to help invent interstellar travel, estimated that just planning for such a trip could take 100 years. Dr. Jemison, 56, hopes it can happen sooner.曾经帮助发明了互联网的美国国防部高级研究计划局（Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency，简称Darpa)现在想帮助开发星际旅行。计划局预计，仅仅是规划这样的旅行就要花费100年时间。56岁的杰米森希望这样的旅程能尽早成真。

The Centauri planet was officially announced on her birthday, and over the phone from her new headquarters in Houston she sounded practically bubbly. “I can’t imagine a cooler birthday,” she said.发现半人马座行星的消息正式公布那一天，恰逢她的生日。她在休斯敦的新办公地接受电话采访时，听上去可以说是大喜过望。“我无法想象一个比这更棒的生日了，”她说。

Dr. Jemison’s main work these days is spreading the word and raising money. The prospect of habitable real estate makes the idea of journeying to other stars that much more real, she said, adding: “This is a boon, because most people have heard of Alpha Centauri. It’s close.”这些天来，杰米森的主要工作是传播消息，筹集资金。她说，在外太空拥有宜居房产的前景使前往其他星球旅行的想法看上去更加真实。她还补充说，“这是一个利好消息，因为大部分人都听说过半人马座阿尔法星系。它离地球很近。”

Well, sort of close. Space is deeper and older than most humans can comprehend. You can’t measure a light-year by your stride. There are 4.4 of them — 27 trillion miles — from here to Alpha Centauri B.算是比较近吧。宇宙比大多数人所能理解的更加深邃，更加古老。你无法用你的步子丈量光年。从地球到半人马座阿尔法B星的距离是4.4光年，也就是27万亿英里（约合43万亿公里）。

We won’t get there by doing business as usual. Voyager 1, the fastest and most distant human artifact, is more than 11 billion miles from the Sun and is speeding away at 11 miles per second; it would take 78,000 years to get to Alpha Centauri if it were going that way, which it is not.我们无法以寻常的旅行方式抵达那里。人类制造的速度最快、飞离地球最远的探测器，旅行者1号(Voyager 1)目前已经距离太阳系110万英里（约合177万英里），而且还在继续以每秒11英里（约合17.7公里）的速度飞离太阳系。如果它朝半人马座阿尔法星系进发，那么它需要花上7.8万年才能抵达。不过，它并没有往那个方向飞。

Other schemes, based on existing or about-to-be-existing technology like solar sails and thermonuclear rockets, have been proposed that could reach a tenth the speed of light and make the crossing in less than a human lifetime. (If you have a design for a faster-than-light warp drive, send it directly to Dr. Jemison, not me.)也有人提出了以现有技术或者即将变为现实的技术，像太阳帆、热核火箭等，为基础的方案。按照这些方案，星际航行的速度将达到光速的十分之一，人可以在有生之年完成旅行。（如果你设计出了比光速还快的曲速引擎，请直接寄给杰米森，不用给我。）

Of course the cost would be staggering, even for the robots (perhaps genetically engineered nanoprobes) that would precede humans. And whoever eventually goes won’t ever come back.当然，就是对先于人类出发的机器人（可能是通过基因工程建造的纳米探测器）来说，旅行的成本也会十分昂贵。而且，不管最后谁去，都不可能回来了。

It won’t be me, despite what I once wrote in my high school yearbook: “Ambition: To go to the stars.”我肯定不去，虽然我曾在中学的学年纪念册中写到：“梦想：去外星球。”

Perhaps it is a sign of my age that I think more these days about what I would be leaving behind than what I would be gaining: my family and other loved ones, autumn in the Catskills, one more cowboy trout stream or New Year’s Eve with old friends.或许，这说明我已不再年轻。现在，我会更关心的不是自己能得到什么，而是我会失去什么：我的家人和其他我爱的人、卡茨基尔山的秋天、再玩一次飞绳钓的机会，或者和老友一起度过的新年之夜。

I asked Dr. Jemison if she would go, knowing it was forever.我问杰米森，假如知道一去就永远回不来，还会去吗？

“Yeah,” she answered. “I would go.”“当然，”她回答道，“我会去。”

Perhaps hearing the catch of loneliness in my voice, she added, “It makes a difference who goes with you.”或许是听出了我语气中暗示的孤独，杰米森补充道，“当然，谁和你去很重要。”

In science fiction, she said, space travel is sterile.她说，科幻里描述的太空旅行总是很枯燥无味。

“I think it won’t be like that,” she said. “It has to be reimagined. We will bring our culture along with us.”“我认为不会是那个样子，”她说，“我们需要重新想象。我们会把自己的文化带过去。”

All that is part of the Starship study’s mandate, she said.这些都是星舰研究计划任务的一部分，她说。

At a recent symposium that was a sort of housewarming for the new institute, Dr. Jemison said, there was a lot of talk about what it means to be an interstellar civilization. “Do we start calling ourselves Earthlings instead of Americans?”在最近一次算是专门庆祝新中心成立的讨论会上，杰米森说，成为一个星际文明将意味着什么，已经有很多讨论。“我们是不是要叫自己地球人而不是美国人了呢？”

Another big topic of conversation, surprisingly or not so surprisingly, was how to dress on a star cruise. As Dr. Jemison pointed out, not all of us are going to look good in those little spandex Star Trek uniforms. And even for those who do, the look will get old after 40 years.谈论涉及的另外一个大的话题是，星际旅行中应该穿什么？这也许令人惊讶，又或许颇为正常。正如杰米森所指出的，我们不是所有人穿着《星际迷航》(Star Trek)里那种氨纶服装都会好看。而即使是那些穿着好看的人，40年后，那款式也过时了。

Perhaps, some people suggested, we won’t need clothes at all on the starship. Everyone would go around in the Band-Aids that passed for underwear in this summer’s “Prometheus,” Ridley Scott’s not-quite prequel to “Alien.”也有人提议，或许，在星际飞船上，我们根本不需要穿衣服。就像在雷德利·斯科特(Ridley Scott)导演、勉强算是《异形》(Alien)前传的《普罗米修斯》(Prometheus)里那样。每个人只裹着绷带一样的东西，当作内衣。

But the urge to decorate oneself seems built into human nature. And anyway, the urge to see what concoctions can be worn successfully in zero gravity is likely to be overwhelming. The Japanese fashion designer Eri Matsui has already designed a wedding dress — actually a clever pantsuit — that was worn for a wedding aboard a “vomit comet” flight in 2009.然而，打扮自己似乎是人的天性。而且，不管怎样，人们想知道零重力状态下怎么搭配衣服才好看的愿望一定会十分强烈。日本的时装设计师松居惠里(Eri Matsui)已设计出一套婚纱——其实是设计聪明的长裤套装——而且，2009年，已有人穿着这套婚纱乘着宇航局的“呕吐彗星”号喷气机(“vomit comet”)举行了婚礼。

So start shopping and packing — if you dare.所以，现在就开始去购物和收拾行李吧——如果你敢去太空旅行的话。

Presumably you won’t be limited to one carry-on.大概，他们不会只允许你带一件随身行李。

翻译：张薇、谷菁璐