亿万富翁布兰森圆梦，太空旅游离我们还有多远？
Branson Completes Virgin Galactic Flight, Aiming to Open Up Space Tourism
KENNETH CHANG
2021年7月12日
SPACEPORT AMERICA, N.M. — Soaring more than 50 miles into the hot, glaringly bright skies above New Mexico, Richard Branson at last fulfilled a dream that took decades to realize: He can now call himself an astronaut.
新墨西哥州美国太空港——理查德·布兰森(Richard Branson)在新墨西哥州炎热明亮的天空中翱翔了50多英里，终于实现了他花费几十年才实现的梦想：他现在可以称自己为宇航员了。
On Sunday morning, a small rocket plane operated by Virgin Galactic, which Mr. Branson founded in 2004, carried him and five other people to the edge of space and back.
周日上午，他于2004年创立的维珍银河(Virgin Galactic)运营的一架小型火箭飞机载着他和其他五人到达太空边缘并返回。
More than an hour later, Mr. Branson took the stage to celebrate. “The whole thing was magical,” he said.
一个多小时后，布兰森走上讲坛庆祝。“整件事都很神奇，”他说。
Later, during a news conference, Mr. Branson was still giddy, saying “I don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth because I feel I’m still in space.”
在随后的新闻发布会上，布兰森仍然很兴奋，他说：“我不知道自己会说出什么，因为我觉得自己还在太空里。”
Mr. Branson’s flight reinforces the hopes of space enthusiasts that routine travel to the final frontier may soon be available to private citizens, not just the professional astronauts of NASA and other space agencies. Another billionaire with his own rocket company — Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon — has plans to make a similar jaunt to the edge of space in nine days.
布兰森的飞行增强了太空爱好者们的希望——不久之后，不仅是NASA和其他太空机构的专业宇航员，普通人可能享受前往天际的常规旅游。另一位拥有自己的火箭公司的亿万富翁——亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝索斯——计划在九天内进行一次类似的太空边缘旅行。
In each case, billionaire entrepreneurs are risking injury or death to fulfill their childhood aspirations — and advance the goal of making human spaceflight unexceptional.
两件事都是亿万富翁企业家冒着受伤或死亡的风险来实现童年愿望，并推进让人类太空飞行变得平凡的目标。
“They’re putting their money where their mouth is, and they’re putting their body where their money is,” said Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures Limited, a company that charters launches to orbit. “That’s impressive, frankly.”
“他们真正行动起来，他们身体力行。”负责将火箭发射到轨道的公司太空探险有限公司(Space Adventures Limited)的主席埃里克·安德森(Eric Anderson)说。“说真的，这让人很钦佩。”
At 8:40 a.m. Mountain time, a carrier aircraft, with the rocket plane, named V.S.S. Unity, tucked underneath, rose off the runway and headed to an altitude of about 45,000 feet. There, Unity was released, and a few moments later, its rocket motor ignited, accelerating the space plane on an upward arc.
北美山区时间上午8点40分，一架运输机载着名为VSS联合号(V.S.S. Unity)的火箭飞机从跑道上起飞，前往约4.5万英尺的高度。在那里，“联合号”被释放了，几分钟后，它的火箭发动机点火，使这架太空飞机加速上升。
Although Unity had made three previous trips to space, this was its first launch that resembled a full commercial flight of the sort that Virgin Galactic has promised to offer the general public, with two pilots — David Mackay and Michael Masucci — and four more crew members including Mr. Branson.
虽然“团结”号此前曾三次前往太空，但这次，是与维珍银河承诺向公众推出的全商业飞行类似的首次发射，除两名飞行员——戴维·麦凯(David Mackay)和迈克尔·马苏奇(Michael Masucci)——之外，还有包括布兰森在内的另外四名机组成员。
This flight resembled a party for Virgin Galactic and the nascent space tourism business. Guests included Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX; Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico; and about 60 customers who have paid for future Virgin Galactic flights.
这次飞行仿佛是维珍银河与新兴太空旅游业的一次庆祝派对。嘉宾包括SpaceX创始人伊隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)；新墨西哥州州长米歇尔·卢扬·格里沙姆(Michelle Lujan Grisham)；以及大约60名已为维珍银河的未来飞行支付了费用的顾客。
Stephen Colbert of the CBS program “The Late Show” introduced segments of the webcast. After the landing, the R&B singer Khalid performed a new song.
CBS节目《深夜秀》(Late Show)主持人斯蒂芬·科尔伯特(Stephen Colbert)介绍了网络直播的内容。着陆后，R&B歌手哈立德(Khalid)演唱了一首新歌。
When the fuel was spent, Unity continued to coast upward to an altitude of 53.5 miles. The four people in back unbuckled and experienced about four minutes of floating before returning to their seats.
燃料耗尽后，“团结”号继续向53.5英里的高空滑行。后排四名乘客解开了安全带，在回到座位前体验了大约四分钟的失重漂浮。
Mr. Branson was accompanied in the cabin by Beth Moses, the company’s chief astronaut instructor; Colin Bennett, lead operations engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs and research operations.
布兰森的机上随行人员包括公司的首席宇航员指导员贝丝·摩西(Beth Moses)；首席运维工程师科林·本内特(Colin Bennett)；以及政府事务和运营研究副总裁西丽莎·班德拉(Sirisha Bandla)。
Mr. Bennett said that he was busy with tasks during the first part of the flight and then he heard Ms. Moses shouting, “Don’t forget to look out the window.”
本内特说，在飞行的第一阶段，他正忙着手头的任务，然后就听到摩西大喊，“别忘了看看窗外。”
He did. “It’s very Zen,” Mr. Bennett said of the view of Earth below. “What jumped out at me were the colors and just how far away it looked. It felt like we were just so far up there, and I was just mesmerized.”
他确实看了。“很禅，”本内特这样形容下方地球的风光。“最吸引我的是那些颜色，以及它看起来是那么遥远。感觉我们飞到了太高的地方，简直让我目眩神迷。”
Ms. Bandla’s role was to evaluate another market Virgin Galactic is targeting: scientists doing research that takes advantage of minutes of microgravity. She conducted an experiment from the University of Florida which looked at how plants react to the changing conditions — particularly the swings in gravity — during the flight, part of research that could aid growing food on future long-duration space missions.
班德拉的任务是对维珍银河的另一个目标市场进行评估：让科学家研究出这几分钟微重力环境的利用办法。她在佛罗里达大学(University of Florida)进行了一项实验，观察植物在飞行期间不断变化——特别是重力波动——的环境里如何做出反应，这是帮助未来长期太空任务种植食物的研究的一部分。
As the space plane re-entered the atmosphere, the downward pull of gravity resumed. Unity glided to a landing back at the spaceport.
当太空飞机重新进入大气层，重力向下的拉力又会恢复。“团结”号滑翔返回了航天港着陆。
Michael Moses, president of Virgin Galactic, said the flight appeared to go flawlessly. “The ship looks pristine, no issues whatsoever,” Mr. Moses said.
维珍银河总裁迈克尔·摩西(Michael Moses)表示，此次飞行几乎无可挑剔。“船体看起来跟新的一样，没有任何问题，”摩西说。
or well over a decade, Mr. Branson, the irreverent 70-year-old British billionaire who runs a galaxy of Virgin companies, has repeatedly said he believed that commercial flights would soon begin. So did the 600 or so customers of Virgin Galactic who have paid $200,000 or more for their tickets to space and are still waiting. So did the taxpayers of New Mexico who paid $220 million to build Spaceport America, a futuristic vision in the middle of the desert, in order to attract Mr. Branson’s company.
不拘小节的70岁英国富豪布兰森拥有维珍集团旗下无数公司，十多年来，他不断宣称自己相信商业飞行很快就会实现。维珍银河的大约600名顾客也相信如此，他们斥资20万美元或更多的钱购买了前往太空的机票，但仍在等待。同样相信的，还有新墨西哥州的纳税人，为了吸引布兰森的公司，他们支付了2.2亿美元的成本，在沙漠中建造了美国航天港这一未来愿景。
After years and years of unmet promises, Virgin Galactic may begin flying the first paying passengers next year after two more test flights. But with tickets costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, this experience will, for now, remain out of financial reach for most people.
在年复一年的承诺跳票后，维珍银河可能会在明年再进行两次试飞后开始运送第一批付费乘客。但由于机票价格高达数十万美元，大多数人目前仍享受不起这种体验。
Virgin Galactic’s space plane is a scaled-up version of SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the first reusable crewed spacecraft built by a nongovernmental organization to make it to space twice in two weeks.
维珍银河的太空飞机是“太空船1号”(SpaceShipOne)的放大版。“太空船1号”作为首个由非政府组织建造的可重复使用载人飞船，在两周时间里抵达太空两次，因此获得了2004年的安萨里X大奖(Ansari X Prize)，奖金为1000万美元。
Mr. Branson initially predicted commercial flights would begin by 2007. But development of the larger craft, SpaceShipTwo, stretched out.
布兰森最初预计商业飞行将在2007年开始。但研发更大的“太空船1号”拖延了进展。
Mr. Bezos’ flight is to take place about 200 miles to the southeast of Spaceport America in Van Horn, Texas, where his rocket company, Blue Origin, launches its New Shepard rocket and capsule.
贝佐斯的飞行将在距离得克萨斯州范霍恩的美国航天港东南约200英里处进行，他的火箭公司蓝色起源(Blue Origin)将在那里发射“新谢帕德”(New Shepard)号火箭和太空舱。
Although Blue Origin has yet to fly any people on New Shepard, 15 successful uncrewed tests of the fully automated system convinced the company it would be safe to put Mr. Bezos on the first flight with people aboard.
虽然蓝色起源还没用“新谢帕德”号载过人，但对其全自动系统进行的15次成功无人飞行测试让该公司确信，贝佐斯一起参与首次载人飞行是安全的。
He will be joined by his brother, Mark, and Mary Wallace Funk, an 82-year-old pilot. In the 1960s, she was among a group of women who passed the same rigorous criteria that NASA used for selecting astronauts, but the space agency at the time had no interest in selecting women as astronauts. A fourth unnamed passenger paid $28 million in an auction for one of the seats.
与他同行的是他的弟弟马克和82岁的飞行员玛丽·华莱士·芬克(Mary Wallace Funk)。在1960年代，她是通过了NASA用于选择宇航员的严格标准的女性之一，但当时的NASA无意选择女宇航员。第四名未透露姓名的乘客在拍卖中为其中一个座位支付了2800万美元。
Neither Blue Origin nor Virgin Galactic flights go high enough or fast enough to enter orbit around Earth. Rather, these suborbital flights are more like giant roller coaster rides that allow passengers to float for a few minutes while admiring a view of Earth against the black backdrop of space.
蓝色起源和维珍银河的太空飞行都达不到进入地球轨道的高度和速度。这些亚轨道飞行其实更像是巨大的过山车，让乘客可以失重漂浮几分钟，同时欣赏黑色太空背景下的地球景色。
Mr. Bezos’ company emphasized the rivalry with Virgin Galactic for space tourism passengers in a tweet on Friday. Blue Origin highlighted differences between its New Shepard rocket and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo including the fact that New Shepard flies higher, above the altitude of 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, that is often regarded as the boundary of space. However, the United States Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration set the boundary at 50 miles.
贝佐斯的公司周五发布了一条推文，强调了与维珍银河在太空旅游乘客方面的竞争。蓝色起源强调了其“新谢帕德”火箭与维珍银河的“太空船2号”(SpaceShipTwo)之间的差异，包括“新谢帕德”火箭飞得更高，高于海拔100公里或约62英里的高度，这通常被视为太空边界。然而，美国空军和联邦航空管理局(Federal Aviation Administration)将边界定为50英里。
The company also noted the size of the New Shepard capsule’s windows, and called Virgin Galactic’s Unity “a high-altitude plane” in contrast to New Shepard’s rocket.
该公司还指出了“新谢帕德”太空舱窗户的尺寸，并称维珍银河的“团结”号为“一架高空飞机”，与“新谢帕德”号有天壤之别。
Mr. Bezos on Sunday congratulated Mr. Branson and his fellow crew on their flight. “Can’t wait to join the club!” he said in an Instagram post.
贝佐斯周日祝贺布兰森和他的机组人员顺利飞行。“等不及要加入你们的行列了！”他在Instagram帖子中说。
At the news conference, Mr. Branson said, “It really wasn’t a race.” He added, “We wish Jeff the absolute best.”
在新闻发布会上，布兰森说，“这真的不是在比赛。”他还说：“我们希望杰夫一切顺利。”
Blue Origin has not yet announced a ticket price, and Virgin Galactic’s earlier quoted fare of $250,000 will probably rise. But on Sunday after his trip, Mr. Branson announced a sweepstakes that will give away two seats on a future Virgin Galactic flight.
蓝色起源尚未公布票价，而维珍银河早先报价的25万美元票价可能会上涨。但在他旅行结束后，在周日，布兰森宣布了一项抽奖活动，将赠送两个未来维珍银河太空旅行的座位。
But how many people are willing to spend as much as some houses cost for a few minutes of space travel?
但是，有多少人愿意为几分钟的太空旅行砸下相当于某些豪宅的费用呢？
Carissa Christensen, founder and chief executive of Bryce Space and Technology, an aerospace consulting firm, thinks there will be plenty. “Based on previous ticket sales, surveys and interviews,” she said in an email, “we see strong demand signals for multiple hundreds of passengers a year at current prices, with potential for thousands if prices drop significantly.”
航空航天咨询公司布莱斯太空技术(Bryce Space and Technology)的创始人兼首席执行官卡丽莎·克里斯滕森(Carissa Christensen)认为会有很多。她在一封电子邮件中说：“根据之前的门票销售、调查和采访，按当前价格，我们看到强烈的需求信号，每年会有几百名乘客，如果大幅降价，可能会有数千名乘客。”
Mr. Anderson of Space Adventures is less certain.
太空探险公司(Space Adventures)的安德森则不太确定。
Two decades ago, his company did sell suborbital flights including a ticket to Ms. Funk, who goes by Wally. “Wally Funk was one of our first customers,” Mr. Anderson said. “That would have been like 1998.”
二十年前，他的公司确实出售了亚轨道飞行体验，包括一张给芬克的机票，人们叫她沃利。“沃利·芬克是我们的第一批客户之一，”安德森说。“那应该是早在1998年。”
The ticket price then was $98,000.
当时的票价是9.8万美元。
At one point, about 200 people signed up, but none of the suborbital rocket companies were able to get their promised spacecraft close to flight. Space Adventures returned the money to Ms. Funk and the others.
有一次，大约有200人报名参加，但没有一家亚轨道火箭公司能够提供他们承诺的航天器用于飞行。太空探险公司将钱退还给了芬克和其他人。
Now this unproven suborbital market has whittled down to a battle of billionaires — Mr. Branson and Mr. Bezos.
现在，这个未证实可行的亚轨道市场已经沦为亿万富翁布兰森和贝佐斯的战场。
“If anybody can make money and make the market work for suborbital, it’s Branson and Bezos,” Mr. Anderson said. “They have the reach and the cachet.”
“如果谁能从中赚钱并使亚轨道市场运转起来，那就是布兰森和贝佐斯，”安德森说。“他们有财力和声望。”
