伟大太空计划，欧洲航天与中国建立合作

The US and Russia are not the only major space nations now. BBC Future meets one of the European astronauts training with an emerging new power – China.

国际航天产业的主要力量并不只有美国和俄罗斯。英国广播电台未来频道采访了一名欧洲宇航员，他正在同航天产业中的新兴力量中国协力共进。

Tips:

1. Disconcertingly similar:惊人地相似；

2. Swapping space suit:宇航服；

3. Survival suit:救生服；

4. Space capsule:太空舱、太空船；

5. Maintain ties with：与。。。保持某种关系；

6. Canny move：明智的做法；

7. Intercultural awareness：跨文化意识；

8. Co-pilot position：副驾驶位置；

9. Taikonaut：中国宇航员；

10.Any time soon：随时，短期内；

It was not what Matthias Maurer was expecting when he signed up for sea survival training with Chinese astronauts.

对于Matthias Maurer来说，同中国宇航员一同海洋生存训练并不符合他的期望。

“It was so nice and relaxed,” says the German European Space Agency (Esa) astronaut. “I was floating there in the life raft, looking up at the sky – I only needed some music and it would have given me a real Hawaii holiday feeling.”

一名德国欧洲航天局（Esa）的宇航员说“这简直太棒了，很放松，我呆在水面的救生筏上仰望天空-我唯一要做的就是听听音乐，简直就像是在夏威夷度假。”

The exercise took place last year at a newly built training centre near the coastal city of Yantai, around an hour’s flight south-east of Beijing. For two weeks, Maurer and fellow Esa astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, lived and worked alongside their Chinese counterparts.

这项训练发生在一处新建的训练中心里，位于烟台市，在北京的东南方向，距离大约一个小时的航程。在训练的两周里，Maurer和来自Esa的宇航员Samantha Cristoforetti同中国宇航员们一同生活并工作。

“We trained together, stayed in the same building as the Chinese astronauts, shared the same food and it was quite an intense experience,” says Maurer. “It felt like being part of a family – it was completely different to being in Houston, where I rent an apartment and see my colleagues only during a two or three-hour training session.”

“我们一起训练，并和中国宇航员们一起吃着相同的食物，这些给了我很强烈的感触，感觉就像是一个大家庭-这感觉和在休斯顿（美国火箭发射基地）完全不一样，在休斯顿我得自己租房子住，并且只能在训练期间的两到三个小时里才能见到我的同事。”

Whereas other space agencies run special team-building exercises to help astronauts work together, the Chinese have adopted a more fundamental approach.

相比其他国家的航天局采用团队建设的训练方法来促进宇航员之间的协同工作，中国则采用了一种更根本却十分重要的训练方式。

“The Chinese astronauts even spend their vacations together, they know each other perfectly well so they’re like brothers and sisters,” says Maurer. “When we lived there we felt so warm-heartedly accepted into their family.”

Maurer说“中国宇航员们甚至在闲暇时间都汇聚在一起，他们彼此间非常了解对方，因此他们之间就像兄弟姐妹一样。住在那里的时候，被他们那个大家庭所接纳，对此我们感觉非常温馨。”

China’s Shenzou spacecraft, which first carried an astronaut (or Taikonaut as they’re known) into orbit in 2003, is designed for a crew of three. It’s based on Russian Soyuz spacecraft technology and looks disconcertingly similar. But Soyuz has been flying astronauts for 50 years and is designed around a rocket that first saw service at the very the dawn of the space age. The Shenzou is much more 21st Century.

2003年中国神州飞船第一次载着中国宇航员进入太空，共搭载了三名宇航员。那一次还是采用的俄罗斯联盟号飞船的技术，并且外形同联盟号飞船非常相似。但是联盟号飞船已经运转五十多年了，并且是围绕着火箭进行设计的，联盟号飞船首次执行任务还是在人类探索太空的早期阶段。神州飞船则是在21世纪开始服役的。

“I was surprised by the dimensions,” says Maurer. “It has a larger diameter than the Soyuz capsule and is much higher – they’ve had a good look at the Russian hardware, they’ve learned what are the good parts and looked at what they can improve.”

Maurer说“我对空间尺寸感到惊讶，中国飞船驾驶舱尺寸要比联盟号更加宽敞-中国所拥有的俄罗斯硬件看上去已经很不错了，并且中国已经学到了精华所在，并找到了哪里需要改进。”

If the space capsule splashes-down at sea for instance, the design of the Shenzou makes the whole experience of swapping space suits for survival suits before clambering out of a bobbing space capsule much easier.

如果在某种情况下返回舱坠入海中，那么宇航员从摇摆不定的返回舱爬出来之前，神舟飞船的设计会使整个由宇航服更换救生服的过程更加简单。

“There is so much room, we even had inflatable rubber boats, which we don’t have in the Soyuz,” he says. “With the Russian sea survival training you jump into the water, there’s no boat – it gets very chilly and it’s much, much harder.”

Maurer还说“中国飞船空间很大，里面甚至备有重启橡皮艇，这些在联盟号上是没有的。俄罗斯的海洋生存训练要求你直接跳进水里，没有船-但海水是冰凉的，这样做会很艰难。”

Maurer only recently qualified as an astronaut but, in his previous role at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, began developing ties with the once secretive Chinese human space programme in 2012. He visited their Beijing training centre a year later to look at their facilities and simulators. And, in 2016, a Chinese astronaut took part in one of Esa’s regular caving expeditions.

Maurer最近才刚刚成为一名合格的宇航员，但他之前作为位于德国科隆的欧洲宇航员中心的工作人员，同2012年一度神秘的中国人类空间计划建立合作关系。并在一年后参观了位于北京的训练中心，这里有相关设施和模拟器。在2016年，一名中国宇航员参加了欧洲宇航局的一项常规挖掘探测训练。

Along with Cristoforetti and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, Maurer has also been learning Mandarin. “It’s good but it needs improvement,” he confesses. Although, he tells me, his name in Chinese translates as “Horse of Heaven”.

同Cristoforetti一起的，还有法国宇航员Thomas Pesquet，Maurer还学会了中国的普通话，他得承认“这感觉不错，不过还需要提高”，他告诉记者，他的名字翻译成中文，意思是“神马(天堂里的马)”

The United States won’t countenance co-operation with China in space – even on the International Space Station (ISS). But Esa is keeping its options open when it comes to getting its astronauts into orbit and beyond.

美国是无法容忍在空间探索方面同中国合作的-甚至在国际空间站项目上也是这样。但欧洲宇航局坚持在送宇航员上太空甚至是进一步的项目上同中国开展合作。

With China on track to launch its first full-sized space station by 2023, and with the country’s robotic mission launching later this year to the far side of the Moon, Esa’s decision to maintain ties with America and Russia while partnering with an emerging new space superpower would seem a canny move.

随着中国计划将于2023年发射全尺寸空间站，以及将机器人送往月球远端的‘国家机器人任务’的推进，欧洲宇航局决定在与美俄保持合作关系的同时，同新兴的太空力量进行合作，这看上去挺精明。

“Esa is already a cooperation between 23 member states, so we know what it takes to bring partners together,” says Maurer. “We speak many languages, we have this intercultural awareness and we’re the perfect glue to bring China into this big international space family.”

Maurer说“欧洲宇航局现有23个合作成员国家，所以我们知道把合作伙伴凑到一起会带来什么，我们说着多种语言，我们拥有跨文化意识，并且我们是把中国带进这个国际航天大家庭的完美撮合者”

China recently signed an agreement with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs to open up its new space station to international research. This could also extend to flying astronauts, in a similar way to the Soviet Intercosmos programme of the 1970s and ‘80s, which saw astronauts from allied nations – including Mongolia, Cuba, Afghanistan and Syria – flying to Russian space stations.

中国目前同美国官方签署了一项关于外太空事务的协议，以此来向国际研究项目开放中国空间站。这也将与苏联在上世纪七八十年代的空间项目相似，让来自蒙古、古巴、阿富汗和叙利亚的宇航员进入俄罗斯空间站一样，让更多的宇航员参与进来。

“My impression is that any country in the world that wants to fly an astronaut can contact the Chinese through the UN and potentially get into space,” says Maurer. “It’s not only Europeans, but developing world countries that might not have an astronaut programme at the moment.”

Maurer说“在我的印象里，世界上任何一个国家如果想送宇航员进太空，都可以通过联合国同中国进行接触，并有机会进入太空。不光是欧洲，而是让目前世界上那些还没有宇航员项目的国家也参与进来。”

Europe is ahead of the game and, in the coming months, Esa astronauts will begin training in the Chinese capsule, hoping one of them gets the co-pilot position on a future mission.

在这件事上，欧洲已经走在前面了，在未来的几个月，欧洲宇航局的航天员将开始在中国航天器中进行训练，希望未来的任务中，他们中有人能够得副驾驶位置。

“In the Soyuz the left seat is the co-pilot, and so we went to China and said we need to negotiate hard to make sure we get that left-hand seat,” Maurer explains. “And they said ‘oh, okay, no problem’…and we thought that was too easy…until we realised [in the Shenzou] the right-hand seat is the co-pilot’s.”

Maurer解释说“在联盟号飞船中，副驾驶位置在左边的座位上，因此我们来到中国并努力进行沟通，以保证我们可以得到左手边的座位。中国方面则给予了痛快答复，‘没问题’，我们觉着这也太轻松了，不过在我们进入神州飞船之前，副驾驶位置始终在右手边。”

Maurer hopes to be make his first spaceflight to the ISS in 2020. After that he will be well-positioned to become one of the first foreign astronauts to fly alongside Taikonauts to the Chinese station in around 2023.

Maurer希望在2020年实现他在国际空间站的第一次太空之旅。在那之后，他将在2023年被安排成为第一位同中国宇航员一同飞向中国空间站的外国宇航员。

Partly because of the diplomatic policies of current US administration, Nasa is unlikely to begin openly cooperating with the Chinese space programme any time soon. In the longer term, however, with America and China both contemplating a return to the Moon and, ultimately, human exploration of Mars, the question is whether the space powers will continue as rivals or whether they will ultimately need to work together).

由于美国政府外交政策的部分原因，美国宇航局似乎不太可能在短期内同中国空间项目开展合作。但从长期来看，由于中美双方都在考虑恢复针对月球的太空计划，并最终开展人类对火星的探索，因此，问题在于双方是否会在空间力量上持续敌对，抑或是最终走向合作的道路。

“Once we look beyond Earth orbit to the Moon or Mars, we need all the partners we can find on this planet because it gets more difficult, more expensive and we need the best technology,” says Maurer. “We are aiming to bring the Chinese into the family and a future lunar research station – the more we have in the family, the better we will become.”

Maurer说“当我们把目光放到地球轨道之外的月球或者火星，我们需要尽可能多地寻找合作伙伴，因为这将使任务难度更加艰巨，成本更加高昂，并且我们需要最尖端的科学技术。我们打算把中国带入国际航天领域这个大家庭，以及未来的月球研究基地-我们的成员越多，我们就会做的越好。”

本文摘自 BBC-Future2018/6/27

原文作者 Richard Hollingham

翻译 Peter

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