評論
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What then of manned space exploration?
那載人的空間探索呢？
The government recently announced plans to return to the moon by 2024.
美國政府最近宣布了2024重返月球的計劃。
The successful conclusion of that mission will result in infrequent visitation of the moon by a small number of government scientists and pilots.
這項任務的成功將使少數的政府雇傭的科學家和飛行員的探訪月球活動。
It will leave us no further along in the general expansion of humanity into space than we were 50 years ago.
和五十年前相比，從人類探索宇宙的整體來看，并沒有什么起步。
Something fundamental has to change if we are to see common access to space in our lifetime.
如果我們想要在有生之年讓太空飛行變得習以為然必須有根本的改變。
What I'm going to show you next are a couple of controversial ideas.
我下面要展示的是一些有爭論的觀點。
And I hope you'll bear with me and have some faith that there's credibility behind what we're going to say here.
我希望大家耐心聽我講并且相信，我們這里所說的是確實可信的。
There are three underpinnings of working in space privately.
私人探索太空工作有三大支柱。
One of them is the requirement for economical earth-to-space transport.
其一是經濟的地球到太空的交通運輸。
The Bert Rutans and Richard Bransons of this world have got this in their sights and I salute them.
創業家們象伯特?魯坦斯和理查德?布蘭特（維珍航空公司的創始人）已經開始在這方面努力,我向他們致敬。
Go, go, go.
加油，加油，加油。
The next thing we need are places to stay on orbit.
我們需要的另一件事是軌道上的停留處。
Orbital hotels to start with, but workshops for the rest of us later on.
先以做太空酒店（旅游業）開始，之后可以我們的工作站。
The final missing piece, the real paradigm-buster, is this:
最后一點，真正能扭轉乾坤的是：
a gas station on orbit.
太空軌道加油站。
It's not going to look like that.
它不會是圖上這樣的。
If it existed, it would change all future spacecraft design and space mission planning.
如果它存在，它會改變所有未來宇宙飛船和宇宙空間探索計劃的設計。
Now, to give you a chance to understand why there is power in that statement,I've got to give you the basics of Space 101.
現在，為了讓大家明白此斷言的分量，我要教大家一點兒太空基礎知識。
And the first thing is everything you do in space you pay by the kilogram.
首先，你要為在太空里所做的每一件事情按千克付費。
Anybody drink one of these here this week?
有人這周喝過一杯這個嗎？
You'd pay 10,000 dollars for that in orbit.
在軌道上你要為其支付一萬美元。
That's more than you pay for TED,
那比你要參加TED支付的費用還要多，
if Google dropped their sponsorship.
如果谷歌撤銷他們的贊助的話。
The second is more than 90 percent of the weight of a vehicle is in propellant.
其次，推進劑占百分之九十多的飛船重量。
Thus, every time you'd want to do anything in space,
因此，每次你想要在宇宙空間里做任何事，
you are literally blowing away enormous sums of money every time you hit the accelerator.
每次你踩加速器時，你就是在大筆地燒錢。
Not even the guys at Tesla can fight that physics.
即使是做Tesla(極品電動跑車)的家伙們也沒法戰勝那個物理現象。
So, what if you could get your gas at a 10th the price?
所以，如果你能都以十分之一的價錢得到燃料會怎樣？
There is a place where you can.
有個地方可以讓你這樣做。
In fact, you can get it better-you can get it at 14 times lower if you can find propellant on the moon.
事實上，可以更便宜--你能以十四分之一的價格得到，如果你能夠在月球上發現推進劑的話。
There is a little-known mission that was launched by the Pentagon, 13 years ago now, called Clementine.
美國國防部13年展開了一個鮮為人知的，稱為克萊門汀的計劃。
And the most amazing thing that came out of that mission was a strong hydrogen signature at Shackleton crater on the south pole of the moon.
這項計劃最令人稱奇的發現是在月球的南極沙克爾頓環形山探測到很強的氫氣信號。
That signal was so strong,
那信號非常強，
it could only have been produced by 10 trillion tons of water buried in the sediment, collected over millions and billions of years by the impact of asteroids and comet material.
只有沉淀地下的10萬億噸水才能生成它，那水是成百上千萬年，小行星和彗星撞擊遺留物匯聚而成。
If we're going to get that, and make that gas station possible,
如果我們要用這水使加油站的建造成為可能的話，
we have to figure out ways to move large volumes of payload through space.
我們必須找到在在太空中移動大量物資的方法。
We can't do that right now.
我們現在還做不到。
The way you normally build a system right now is you have a tube stack that has to be launched from the ground,
人們現在的做法是從地球使用多級火箭，
and resist all kinds of aerodynamic forces.
這種方法需要克服各種空氣動力效應。
