经济学人下载:星际飞船已备好,来一场说走就走的宇宙之旅(1)

Space flight 

宇宙飞行

Tally ho! 

呔呵！

The Starship SN8 is ready for lift off 

星际飞船SN8已准备好起航

If all goes well, Elon Musk's plan to conquer the universe will soon take another step forward, with the flight of Starship SN8, a rocket built by his company, SpaceX. SN8 is expected to rise from its launch pad at Boca Chica, in Texas, sometime between December 4th and 6th. (SpaceX have not confirmed this, but a local flight restriction has been imposed on the area for that period.) The idea is that it will fly to an altitude of 15km, cut its engines, tip slowly forward until it is parallel with Earth's surface, and let gravity take its course. Then, shortly before it hits the ground, it will fire its thrusters again to realign itself vertically and will thus come gently to rest on a landing pad a few hundred metres away from where it took off. 

如果一切顺利，随着SpaceX公司制造的“SN8星舰”火箭的飞行，埃隆·马斯克征服宇宙的计划将很快向前迈进一步。SN8预计将于12月4日至6日间从德克萨斯州博卡奇卡的发射台升空。(SpaceX尚未证实这一点，但该地区在这段时间内实施了飞行限制。)计划是，SN8将飞到15公里的高度，关闭引擎，慢慢向前倾斜直到与地球表面平行，并让重力来决定它的路线。然后，在落地前不久它将再次启动推进器，重新进行垂直调整，之后缓慢落在离起飞地点几百米远的着陆台上。

SN8 is, as its name suggests, the eighth in the current series of prototypes for SpaceX's proposed Starship (SN stands for "serial number"). It is, though, the first to have a nose cone, and thus to assume the distinctive atmosphere-penetrating shape normally sported by space rockets. It also has more oomph than its predecessors. Previous SNS have used just one of SpaceX's Raptor engines, and have, if launched (some were used for ground tests), reached a height of no more than 150 metres. SN8 includes three Raptors—half the number expected for the finished design. 

正如它的名字所示，SN8是SpaceX目前计划中的星际飞船系列原型中的第八艘(SN代表“序列号”)。不过，它是第一个拥有锥鼻的火箭，因此它具备一般太空火箭所具备的独特的能够穿透大气层的形状。它还比它的前辈们更具魅力。以前的SNS只使用了SpaceX的猛禽引擎中的一个，而且一旦发射(一些被用于地面测试)，其高度不超过150米。SN8则包含3个猛禽引擎，是预计完成设计数量的一半。

Strictly, SN8 is a prototype of only the second stage of the Starship that SpaceX proposes eventually to build. Its successors are intended to sit on an as-yet-to-beconstructed "Super Heavy" rocket that will deliver the bulk of the firepower. This firststage vehicle is expected to house up to 37 Raptors. These will give it double the thrust developed by the first stage of a Saturn V, the launch vehicle America used for its crewed Moon missions. And the Moon is, indeed, an intended destination, though the craft will earn most of its bread and butter ferrying goods and people into orbits close to Earth—a task for which it has a capacity of 100 tonnes. 

严格来说，SN8只是SpaceX计划最终建造的星际飞船的第二阶段的原型。它的下一任计划坐在一种尚未建造的“超级重型”火箭之上，这种火箭将提供大部分的火力。第一阶段的运载工具预计将容纳37架猛禽。这将使其推力达到美国用于载人登月任务的运载火箭“土星5号”第一阶段时的两倍。虽说这艘飞船的主要收入来源是运送货物和人员到接近地球的轨道——这是一项载重量为100吨的任务，但月球是其真正的预订目的地。