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今天来看一篇上一期《经济学人》中Science&technology 板块里关于太空旅游的文章。 这两天有个新闻，美国38岁的年轻富翁艾萨克曼太空旅游回来发现，一家老小都感染了新冠。 随着维珍航空创始人Richard Branson 和世界首富贝佐斯成功实现太空游之后， 人类进入太空旅游看来不再是梦想。 技术有了，运输工具有了，唯一缺的就是那张用钱堆起来的船票了。 都说艺术源自生活，太空游有了真体验之后，影视行业也不会放过这个大热点的。 今天这篇文章也提到了艾萨克曼的这次太空之旅。 Space tourism: Lights, camera, lift-off标题可翻译成：太空游-灯光摄影准备好，起飞！ 因为这篇提到了影视方面，所以lights, camera就是影片开拍前要准备好的东西，就像开拍前常说的：灯光、音响、摄像准备好！ Reality television loves small, enclosed worlds. Space travel requires them. That these two facts would, some day, come together has long seemed inevitable. The launch of four civilian astronauts into orbit early on September 16th (London time) sealed the deal. These days, missions are streamed on the YouTube channel of the agencies and companies involved. 真人秀钟爱狭小封闭的世界。太空旅游正需要这样的世界。这两个事实在某一天碰撞到一起只是一触即发。 而在9月16日早些时候四位平民宇航员进入太空将这一推想盖棺定论。在现代，发射任务会在发射机构和某些相关公司的的YouTube频道上进行直播。 seal the deal 针对的是前面那句That these two facts would, some day come together has long deemed inevitable来说的。 即以前只是人们一直这样认为，但这次平民宇航员进入太空彻底验证了这一推想-太空游和真人秀直播同时开启。 seal v 封住 seal a victory 锁定胜局 seal their friendship 结成友谊 读完第一段就理解了本文主要讲-流媒体直播太空游事件。 An East Coast prime-time stream on Netflix’s YouTube channel for the launch of a mission which is the subject of an ongoing documentary series on the streaming service, “Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space”, is something else. Footage from the mission will be used in a feature-length final episode later this month. 在网飞YouTube频道上，东海岸黄金时段关于此次发射的一场直播却有点不一样。这次直播是流媒体服务上“倒数：灵感4发射升空任务”系列纪录片的一个主题。 此次发射的影像将会被用到本月末上映的正片长度的最终集里。 prime time 黄金时段 The Inspiration4 mission was conceived and paid for by Jared Isaacman, the founder of Shift4, a payments company. Billionaires in space has been something of a trend in recent months, with Richard Branson ascending 86 kilometres in a rocket-plane built by Virgin Galactic, a company he founded, and Jeff Bezos reaching 107km atop a New Shepard rocket built by his company Blue Origin. 灵感4太空任务是由支付公司Shift4创始人贾里德·艾萨克曼提出并支付飞行费用的。 近几个月来，随着理查德·布兰森搭乘其公司维珍银河自制的火箭飞机升入86千米高空和贝佐斯搭乘其自己公司蓝色起源制造的新谢泼德号火箭升入107高空，亿万富翁游太空正在成为一种潮流。 那这个贾里德·艾萨克曼是谁呢？ 他今年38岁，高中辍学后，就开始了创业。后来成立了美国数字支付公司Shift4Payments。 身价超过数十亿美元。 他是一个飞行狂粉，是美国黑钻石喷气团队的一员，参加了100多场航展。2011年，创立了德拉肯国际，为美国武装部队训练飞行员。 Mr Isaacman’s trip is different. It is being undertaken not to show off his own wares but to enjoy someone else’s—specifically those of SpaceX, a company founded by Elon Musk—while raising money for a charity close to his heart: St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. 艾萨克曼此次的旅行有些不同。他不是为了炫耀自己的财富而是来享受别人的货物-尤其是马斯克的SpaceX公司的产品。 最重要的是他希望通过此次活动为一家儿童医院筹款。 ware 产品，商品 At about 575km, they are around 150km higher than the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). On September 19th, after more than 40 orbits—40 sunrises, 40 sunsets—they will re-enter the atmosphere and splash down in the Atlantic. 他们会飞到比国际空间站宇航员高150千米的575千米高空。9月19日，在经历40次绕轨飞行-40个日升，40个日落后，他们将会返回大气层，降落到大西洋海域。 The mission is similar to the flights SpaceX provides as part of its contract with NASA to take astronauts to and from the ISS. Fulfilling that contract was what got SpaceX into human spaceflight; tourism is a sideline it is exploring now that business is up and running. 本次任务与SpaceX和美国宇航局签订的从空间站接送宇航员的飞行合同的任务类似。 完成这些任务是SpaceX进入载人飞行的敲门砖。而太空旅游则是SpaceX公司开发和经营的副业。 Other companies are getting involved, too. Axiom Space, a firm which aspires to build a private space station of its own, is selling SpaceX trips to the ISS as part of a deal made with NASA. Most will be sold to the wealthy. But in May the Discovery Channel announced that one of the passengers would be the winner of a new reality-show competition called “Who Wants to be an Astronaut?” 其它公司也正在参与进来。致力于私人空间站的Axiom 太空公司正在将自己的太空旅游合同出售给SpaceX公司，作为与美国宇航局交易的一部分。 大部分订单会出售给富人们。但在五月份，发现频道宣布其中一位太空旅行乘客将会成为新真人秀比赛《谁想成为下一个宇航员》的获胜者。 Whether that will make for compelling viewing remains to be seen. One difference between reality tv and space flight is attitudes to conflict. Television bosses want lots. Mission controllers prefer none. 这是否会提高收视率还有待观察。真人秀和太空旅游的一个区别在于选手对冲突的态度。电视老板希望冲突越多越好。而飞行任务控制员则期望冲突为零。 文章不是很难，但里面的信息量还是挺大的。从直播开始，貌似任何事都有人观看，任何人都有可能流量，都能创造一些收视率。 但就像《与卡戴珊一家同行》一样，观看的营养价值有多少呢？ |
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