中国首位非军人航天员随神舟十六号升空

A rocket blasted into orbit with three astronauts on board.

一枚火箭载着三名宇航员进入轨道。

They're headed to China's new space station to relieve a crew that's been there for six months.

他们将前往中国新空间站与已经在那里呆了六个月的宇航员会师。

Among the three is the first civilian to be sent into orbit by China.

在送入轨道的这三名宇航员中，有一位是中国首位非军人宇航员。

The country's space program is run by the military. So for them, this is another milestone.

中国的太空计划由军方管理。于他们而言，这是另一个里程碑。

To discuss more, we have NPR's John Ruwitch with us from Shanghai. Hi there, John.

NPR新闻的约翰·鲁维奇将从上海带来详细讨论。你好，约翰。

Good morning.

早上好。

Good morning. So this civilian, who is he and why is it so important that he's going up to space?

早上好。那么这个非军方的人，他是谁，为什么他上太空这么重要?

Yeah, it's a bespectacled professor named Gui Haichao who's 36 years old.

是的，他是一位戴眼镜的教授，名叫桂海潮，今年36岁。

He teaches at Beihang University in Beijing, which is China's premier aeronautics and astronautics university.

他在北京的北航任教，北航是中国首屈一指的航空航天大学。

He actually got his bachelor's degree and Ph.D. there as well in aerospace engineering.

他在北航获得了航空航天工程的学士学位和博士学位。

And then he went on to do post-doc work in Canada.

随后，他继续在加拿大做博士后工作。

He's on this mission as a payload specialist, so he's not navigating or flying, but he's basically going to be conducting science experiments.

他以有效载荷专家的身份执行这项任务，所以他不会参与导航或飞行任务，但他会开展基本的科学实验。

I called Quentin Parker, who's a space scientist at the University of Hong Kong, to ask how significant this is.

我打电话给昆汀·帕克，他是香港大学的太空科学家，问他这有多重要。

He says it's important because it sort of opens a new chapter for China's ambitious space program.

他说，这很重要，因为这为中国雄心勃勃的太空计划打开了新的篇章。

If you've got, you know, an orbital space station like the Chinese now have, which is basically a very large science laboratory, then the kind of equipment and payloads they have up there are very sophisticated technological and scientific equipment, sometimes quite delicate.

如果你有一个像中国现在这样的轨道空间站，基本上就是一个大型科学实验室，那么他们在那里拥有的设备和有效载荷都是先进的技术和科研设备，有时甚至非常精密。

It needs to be operated and understood and managed by people who know what they're doing. And these are the - you know, these are the scientists.

这样的空间站需要由知道自己在做什么的人来运转、理解和管理。你知道，这些人都是科学家。

These are the scientists. You got to remember, up until today, all of China's astronauts came from the military.

这些是科学家。你要记住，直到今天，中国所有的宇航员都来自军队。

Now, you mentioned this program is ambitious. What exactly is China planning?

现在，你提到这个项目雄心勃勃。中国到底在计划什么?

Well, look, I mean, their first manned space mission was in 2003, right? So in 20 years, they - 20 years later, they now have an operational space station.

嗯，瞧，中国第一次载人航天任务是在2003年，对吧? 20年后，他们现在有了一个运转的空间站。

They've gone from basically one crewed mission every two or three years to now they're doing one every six months to change crew at the space station. They've picked up the pace.

他们已经从基本上每两三年执行一次载人任务变成现在每六个月更换一次空间站上的人员。他们加快了步伐。

They've sent a rover to Mars. They've sent various crafts to the moon, brought back moon rocks.

他们已经向火星发射了一辆探测车。他们向月球发射了不同类型的飞船，还带回了月球岩石。

And they just announced plans to put a Chinese person onto the surface of the moon by 2030.

他们刚刚宣布了在2030年之前将中国人送上月球表面的计划。

By the way, the U.S. is also trying to do some of this same stuff, including getting Americans back to the moon.

顺便说一下，美国也在尝试做一些同样的事情，包括让美国人重返月球。

OK, so how does all this fit in with the tension and competition between the U.S. and China? Is this a new space race?

好吧，那么这一切与中美之间的紧张和竞争有什么关系呢? 这是新的太空竞赛吗?

Right. It's a little more complicated. I asked Dean Cheng about this. He's a senior adviser with the U.S. Institute of Peace.

对。这有点复杂。我问过程院长这个问题。他是美国和平研究所的高级顾问。

This original space race was, at the end of the day, only a little bit about a science and a whole lot about whose system was better, ours or the Soviets. Fast forward to today, we are seeing aspects of that coming back. It's not quite space race 2.0.

这场最初的太空竞赛，说到底，只有一小部分是关于科学的竞赛，而更多的是关于谁的系统更好，我们的还是苏联的更好的竞赛。快进到今天，我们看到了这些方面的回归。这不是太空竞赛2.0。