经济学人下载:天文学 斥资太空

Science and Technolgy
科技

Astronomy
天文学

Throwing money into space
斥资太空

A shiny new telescope is crowding out NASA's other science missions
一个引人瞩目的望远镜把其他科研项目挤出NASA的预算

THE Hubble space telescope, an orbiting observatory launched in 1990 by NASA, America's space agency, has been one of that agency's most successful missions since the Apollo moon shots in the 1960s and 1970s. It has produced a string of scientific achievements: confirming that most galaxies have a black hole in the middle; providing a front-row seat for the collision, in 1994, of a comet with the planet Jupiter; and helping to uncover the strange fact that the expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating. But beyond the science, it has also been a public-relations hit. Its beautiful images have introduced a generation to the wonders of astronomy.
哈勃望远镜是于1990年由美国航空航天局（NASA）发射的一个轨道运行天文台。它已成为美国航空局自20世纪6、70年代阿波罗号发射后最重大的成就之一。它也产生了一系列科学成果：证实了大多数星系中间都有一个黑洞；为1994年彗星和木星碰撞的观测提供最清晰的视角；有助于发现宇宙趋于加速膨胀的奇特现象。在科学领域之外，它也同样是一个公众讨论的热点。哈勃望远镜所提供的美妙图片已经将一代又一代人引入天文学奇观中去。

So in 2002, when the agency considered plans for a successor that would study the universe in infra-red, rather than visible light, would be ready to fly in 2010 and would cost just $2.5 billion, saying "yes" was easy. Nine years later, NASA is regretting that decision. The James Webb space telescope (JWST), as the new machine is called, is still in the workshop, and its launch date has been set back repeatedly (2018 is the latest official estimate). Its cost has gone up to $8.8 billion, a figure that, if history is any guide, could rise still further. Which would be embarrassing at the best of times, but with public-spending cuts looming and NASA's budget flat for the foreseeable future, it is causing real strains.
所以在2002年，代理机构考虑一个将用红外线代替可见光研究宇宙的继任者的计划。这个继任者计划在2010年起飞，而且只花25亿美元，因此当时很容易就通过了。但是9年以后，NASA真的很后悔当初的决定。这台名为JWST的新机器仍然还在工作间，并且它的发射日期一再被推演（2018年是最新的官方估计），按照以往的经验推测，这笔预算还会继续增加。在这最佳时期将会是尴尬的。但是随着公共花费削减正隐隐约约呈现并且对NASA未来的预期并不景气，它正造成真的担忧。

In July, irritated by the JWST's rising costs, the House of Representatives tried to cut $1.9 billion from NASA's budget for next year, in an attempt to have the project cancelled. On November 1st, after lobbying from the telescope's defenders (particularly the American Astronomical Society), the Senate passed a bill that restored the telescope's funding.
7月，受到JWST不断上升的花费的影响，美国众议院试图从NASA下半年的预算中减少19亿美元，让这个项目取消。在9月1日，在望远镜保护人（特别是NASA）的游说下，众议院通过了恢复望远镜基金的议案。

But it is not just politicians that are restive. Astronomers have long worried that the ballooning costs of the telescope would affect NASA's other science projects. Officially, the space agency will say only that other missions will be delayed, but there are fears that some could be cut completely. One potential sacrifice is WFIRST, an infra-red space telescope intended for launch in 2020. This is designed to probe the nature of "dark energy", which is thought to be responsible for the quickening expansion of the universe that Hubble helped bring to the world's attention. A string of other, smaller projects could suffer as well.
但是焦躁不安的不仅仅是政治家，天文学家也一直担心不断增加德望远镜开支会影响美国航空航天局其他科研项目。尽管航天局发布消息说其他项目将仅仅被推迟，但是仍然存在一些项目被完全终止的可怕结果。其中最有可能被牺牲的项目是计划在2020年推出的红外线太红望远镜。该望远镜为了探究宇宙"暗能量"的本质而设计，而"暗能量"被认为是加快宇宙膨胀的主要原因。哈勃望远镜在探究"暗能量"中的作用引起了世界的关注。接下来一系列的其他小项目也将遇到相同的困境。

The telescope's advocates say junking it now would be a false economy. Most of the hardware has already been built, so cancelling it, they argue, would mean throwing all that away. And they play on fears that America is in danger of losing its pre-eminence in high-budget "big science", following the closure earlier this year of the Illinois-based Tevatron, the second-most-powerful particle accelerator in the world.
望远镜的拥护者认为现在放弃它也是假省钱。大多数的硬件已经开发完成，因此，他们认为取消他它将意味着前功尽弃。随着今年早些时候，世界上第二给力的粒子加速器，伊利诺斯州的一万亿电子伏加速器的关闭，他们担忧美国正面临着失去它在以高预算为支撑的尖端科技领域领先地位的威胁。

The JWST, if it does eventually fly, would surely do some spectacular science. The size of its mirror-25 square metres, as against Hubble's 4.5—and the location of its orbit far from the reflected light of Earth will allow it to study some of the earliest (and therefore faintest) events in the universe, including the formation of the first galaxies. It will also help with the search for extrasolar planets.
如果JWST最后可以升空的话，将要成为科学界的壮举。它的反射镜有25平米——远远超过了哈勃4.5平米的面积——而且它的运行轨道离地球的反射光更远，可以让人们看清早期宇宙发生的事情，包括第一个星系的形成。它也能对寻找太阳系外的行星提供帮助。

Hubble, of course, was also late-and around $2 billion over budget. It was lampooned after its launch when a wonky mirror meant that its images were blurred almost to the point of uselessness, and a mission by the Space Shuttle to fix the problem cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Given its subsequent record, few now begrudge the cost. With all that in mind, NASA will press on with the JWST, at least for now. All that remains for America's astronomers to do is pray that their favourite mission is not one of those delayed, or even cancelled, to keep the new telescope on track.
当然，哈勃望远镜也是出现较晚的，并且超出预算达20亿美元。在它发射之后因为一个镜片晃动造成像模糊而被讽刺是毫无用处的，并且一个用航天飞机来完成这样一个修理任务要花费上亿美元，但是据它随后传回的数据来看，很少有人会吝啬这笔钱。鉴于这一切，就目前而言，美国航空航天局会对JWST的研发施压。对于美国航天员来说，他们所能做的就是祈祷他们热衷的任务没有被拖延或者取消将来让望远镜走上正轨。