经济学人下载:六十年代的未来技术 远去的雷鸟号

Science and technology
科学技术

The future technology of the past
六十年代的未来技术

Thunderbirds are gone
远去的雷鸟号

A British defence firm opens its archives to reveal flights of fancy that never flew
英国防务公司公开档案，从未实现的奇思妙想重见天日

READERS of a certain age may remember Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's sci-fi puppet shows—Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet—filmed, as the Andersons put it, in Supermarionation.
上了一定年纪的读者或许会记得盖瑞·安德森和西尔维娅·安德森的科幻木偶剧-《飞天神车》、《雷霆机五号》、《霹雳艇》、《雷鸟特攻队》以及《超空人》，剧集均由安德森夫妇所称的超级木偶出演。

Those who remember Captain Scarlet in particular may find one of the pictures here eerily familiar.
特别是那些还记得《超空人》的读者会发现上面的照片里有一张似曾相识。

English Electric's Fighter Jet Take-Off Platform, a flying airfield, is not quite the Cloudbase from which the immortal captain operated.
英国电气的空中机场-战斗机起飞平台与该剧中永远的队长操控的云霄基地不太像。

But it was intended, like its fictional counterpart, to launch and receive planes while itself airborne.
但就像云霄基地一样，其目的是要在空中发射和接收飞机。

It would have taken off and landed vertically in, say, a jungle clearing otherwise inaccessible to the aircraft piggybacking on it.
它要在一块从林里的空地上垂直起降，否则其所载的飞机无法起落。

English Electric was one of the firms merged into what eventually became BAE Systems, and BAE has recently been through its archives and publicised some of the projects dreamed up in the glory days of the 1960s, when designers' imaginations were allowed to run riot with little consideration of practicality or budget. MUSTARD, for example, was designed by the British Aircraft Corporation.
英国电气是最终被合并为英国航宇系统公司的众多公司中的一员，BAE最近完成了其档案整理工作，并公开了一些在上世纪六十年代的辉煌岁月中构想出来的项目，其时，设计人员的想象力可以天马行空，无需考虑可行性或者预算。例如，MUSTARD是由英国飞机公司（BAC）设计的。

It could pass for something out of Fireball XL5 or Supercar—though it also resembles Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo which will, Virgin hopes, soon be taking paying passengers to the edge of space.
可以认为其构想来自于《雷霆机五号》或《飞天神车》----不过它也有点像维珍银河公司的太空船二号，维珍公司希望其很快便能载着付费乘客到达太空的边缘。

It would have been a three-stage space-plane, though only one stage would have made it into orbit.
太空船二号会是一艘三级航天飞船，尽管只需一级便能将其送入轨道。

The other two were reusable boosters.
其余的两级为可重复使用的助推器。

An Anderson version of the Jumping Jeep, also by BAC, might easily have emerged from the pod carried by Thunderbird Two on one of its missions for International Rescue.
在雷鸟二号执行国际援助组织的任务时，一辆安德森版的跳跃吉普-也出自BAC-从雷鸟二号携带的隔舱中脱离时或许比较简单。

Continuing the vertical-take-off theme, the Jeep would have had 12 fans whose downdraft would have helped it over obstacles such as ditches.
继续刚才垂直起飞的主题，这辆吉普有12个螺旋桨，其产生的向下气流能使吉普跨过壕沟等各种障碍。

And Hawker Siddeley's Intercity Vertical-Lift Aircraft, intended as a passenger plane that could land in urban airports not much bigger than pocket handkerchiefs, looks like the sort of thing that would have whisked Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, International Rescue's London agent, from her penthouse in Mayfair to New York for a day's shopping.
霍克·希德利公司的城际垂直起降飞机是想成为一架可以在胸袋手帕那么大的市内机场中着陆的客机，就像那种能让潘妮洛普·克雷顿华德夫人从自己位于梅菲尔的阁楼一路飞驰到纽约去购物一整天的飞机。

Sadly, none of these fantasies made it into metal.
可悲的是，这些奇思妙想中没有一个成为现实。

They remain as fictional as the Andersons' puppet shows.
它们就和安德森夫妇的木偶剧一样，只是停留在虚构层面。

Too expensive. Or too noisy.
要么费用太高，要么噪声太大，

Or simply too silly.
要么就只是想法太愚蠢。

But that is the strange thing about the future.
但这是关于未来的东西总是很怪。

Nothing ages faster than yesterday's dreams of tomorrow.
没有比昨天的明日梦更易老的东西了。