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50 Years After Apollo 11, A New Moon Race Is On阿波罗11号登月50周年，新一轮登月竞赛拉开帷幕

作者：王一宇

来源：《英语世界》2019年第11期

Yuri Gagarin， Alan Shepard， John Glenn， Neil Armstrong—the first wave of space travelers—were military-trained astronauts thought to have the “right stuff” for risky missions. But early spaceflight wasn’t the exclusive province of men—or even humans. Fruit flies， monkeys， mice， dogs， rabbits， and rats flew into space before humans.

More than three years before Gagarin became the first human in space with his April 1961 journey around Earth， the Soviets famously—or perhaps infamously—sent up a stray dog. Laika was the first animal to orbit Earth but died during her flight. The United States launched a chimpanzee named Ham into space. Happily， he survived， clearing the way for Shepard to became the first American in space in May 1961.

Despite discrimination， women were also pioneers. Some， such as mathematician Katherine Johnson—who hand-calculated the details of the trajectory of the flight that would make Glenn the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962—stayed behind the scenes. Valentina Tereshkova， an early cosmonaut， became the first woman in orbit in 1963. It wasn’t until two decades later that Sally Ride flew on the space shuttle Challenger to become the first American woman to reach space. A bespectacled， bearded Russian recluse fond of science fiction， Konstantin Tsiolkovsky believed humanity’s destiny lay among the stars. By the early 1900s， he had worked out the equation for humans to slip beyond Earth’s gravitational pull. He also imagined how moon-bound rockets would work： using a mix of liquid propellants and igniting multiple stages.

Independently， Hermann Oberth and Robert Goddard reached similar conclusions. By 1926， Goddard， an American， had built and launched the first liquid-fueled rocket. About that time， Oberth， who lived in Germany， determined multiple stages are crucial for long journeys. Four decades later， the trio’s ideas roared to life in the enormous Saturn V rockets that thrust Apollo crews into space. Measuring 363 feet tall and fueled by liquid hydrogen， liquid oxygen， and kerosene， the Saturn V was the most powerful rocket ever built. Engineered by Wernher von Braun—a Nazi Germany rocket scientist who relocated much of his team to work for the U.S. after

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World War II—the Saturn V had three stages that fired in sequence. Rocketry is still governed by Tsiolkovsky’s equation. But no rocket has yet eclipsed the Saturn V， which propelled humans closer to the stars than ever before.

In the 1960s our moon was still very much a mystery. To learn the most from the Apollo visits， NASA selected landing sites in a variety of lunar terrains， including the dark， flat plains sculpted by vanished lava oceans and highlands formed by meteor impacts.

From 1969 to 1972， U.S. astronauts landed at six sites， each chosen for different scientific objectives. All of them were on the moon’s mottled near side， where the terrain had been studied extensively by lunar orbiters and Mission Control could remain in direct contact with the astronauts. Space agencies have sent probes， with no people on them and thus no need to worry about human safety， to visit far-flung places in the solar system. Spacecraft have explored 60 other moons and even set down on one， Saturn’s Titan. On our own moon， robotic rovers have left tracks at four sites.

Over four years， NASA astronauts hauled 842 pounds of moon rocks back to Earth. But the most profound souvenirs weigh nothing： images of Earth. Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders snapped an iconic one on Christmas Eve in 1968， showing our blue planet suspended in darkness near the moon’s sterile， cratered1 horizon.

Astronauts didn’t just take photos and collect moon rocks， they also carried an array of objects from Earth into space with them. John Young （Gemini 3） notoriously smuggled aboard a corned beef sandwich and shared it with Gus Grissom， his crewmate. Grissom pocketed it when crumbs began to float around the cabin. Neil Armstrong （Apollo 11） carried a piece of the Wright Flyer’s wooden propeller. Charles Duke （Apollo 16） packed a family photo and left it in the Descartes highlands.

Fifty years on from the moon landing， we’re doing extraordinary things in space. We’ve sent uncrewed probes to explore all the other planets in our solar system， yielding astonishing photographs and troves of data. The twin Voyager spacecraft2 have literally sped across the solar system and into interstellar space， the first human-made objects ever to do so. They’re more than 11 billion miles away and still communicating with us.

Because the Voyagers could travel forever into the void and both the sun and the Earth have an expiration date （don’t worry， it’s a ways off）， it’s conceivable that one day these sedan-size eternal sojourners3 will be the only evidence that we ever existed. Yet it’s also conceivable that a successor species to us will have long gone interstellar by then， hopefully granting us some recognition for their feat.

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The action in space is hardly confined to American companies or Russia’s program. In January， China boasted that it “opened a new chapter” in lunar exploration by soft-landing an uncrewed spaceship on the far side of the moon， the first time a vehicle had ever touched down there. That spacecraft deployed a rover and carried a “mini-biosphere，” designed to test whether fruit flies and a variety of plants and seeds can work together to create a self-contained food chain in lunar conditions.

The first private lander to reach the moon crashed in April， but the Israeli nonprofit behind it quickly announced plans to try again.

And in Japan， JAXA4， the official space agency， announced in March that it was working with Toyota to develop a crewed moon rover that would enable astronauts to travel 6，000 miles on the lunar surface.

尤里·加加林、艾倫·谢泼德、约翰·格伦、尼尔·阿姆斯特朗，他们是首批经过军事训练的、有“实力”承担高风险任务的宇航员。

然而，早期的宇宙航行并非由男性独占，甚至并非由人类独占，果蝇、猴、鼠、狗、兔均在人类之前进入外太空。

1961年4月，加加林成为第一个进入太空并绕地球一周的人。而在此三年多之前发生了一件著名或者说屡遭诟病的事——苏联将流浪狗莱卡送进了太空，她是第一个环绕地球飞行的动物，但在飞行途中死亡。美国则把黑猩猩汉姆送上太空，值得高兴的是，他在任务中活了下来，这为谢泼德于1961年5月成为第一个进入太空的美国人开辟了道路。

尽管当时存在性别歧视，仍有女性成为先行者。比如数学家凯瑟琳·约翰逊身在幕后，她手算出飞行轨道的细节，这次飞行使格伦在1962年成为第一个环绕地球飞行的美国人;早期宇航员瓦莲京娜·捷列什科娃于1963年成为第一位进入太空轨道的女性;在20年后，萨莉·赖德搭乘挑战者号航天飞机，成为首位进入太空的美国女性。

康斯坦丁·齐奥尔科夫斯基是一位戴眼镜、蓄胡须、爱读科幻小说、离群索居的俄罗斯人，他相信人类的命运在地外星系。至20世纪初，他已计算出使人类摆脱地球引力的公式，并构想了登月火箭如何运行：采用液体推进剂和多级点火。

针对这一设想，赫尔曼·奥伯特和罗伯特·戈达德各自得出了相似的结论。1926年，美国人戈达德建造并发射了世界上第一枚液体火箭。大约同时，奥伯特确定多级火箭对长途太空飞行的重要性。

40年后，这三位科学家的构想在巨大的土星5号运载火箭上得到实现，最终推动阿波罗计划的成员进入太空。土星5号高达363英尺，使用液氢、液氧和煤油燃料，是迄今动力最大