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If you're looking for a public figure with an astronomical approval rating, think Curiosity. The Mars rover has been a huge hit in terms of both public and scientific interest.
如果你在尋找一位在天文學方面有影響力的公眾“人物”，考慮考慮“好奇號”吧。這個火星探測器成功地引起了公眾和科學界的興趣。
NASA seems to love Curiosity, too. So much so that the space agency is planning to launch a similar rover to Mars in 2020. Former astronaut John Grunsfeld, now NASA's science chief, announced the new rover mission December 4th during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
美宇航局似乎也很熱衷“好奇號”。熱衷到如此程度以至宇航局計劃于2020年發射一顆相似的探測器。美國地球物理學協會12月4號在舊金山舉行了會議，在會議中前宇航員、現任美航局科學理事會首席長官約翰·格倫斯菲爾德宣布了這項計劃。
With the unveiling of the $1.5-billion rover plan, NASA now has seven current or planned missions to Mars. But no trips dedicated to more exotic places like Titan or Europa, which also might harbor extraterrestrial microbes—and which have received considerably fewer robot visitors.
算上這項耗資15億美元的探測器計劃，美航局目前有7項火星任務。但是探測器進入土衛六和木衛二這兩個地方造成了嚴重的危害，也許對外星微生物也造成了傷害，這兩處接待的機器人游客數量已經大幅減少。
Plus it's unclear how well the 2020 rover will mesh with existing blueprints for Mars exploration. Long-term plans drawn up by planetary scientists called for a series of missions ultimately bringing samples from Mars back to Earth. But the new rover may not help achieve that goal.
此外，2020年的探測器探索火星時能否做到與現有藍圖一致也未可知。由行星科學家們提出來的長期計劃包括一系列的任務，目的是將火星上的樣本帶回到地球。然而，這個新的探測器可能實現不了那個目標。
So Curiosity has been a hit. But would a knockoff visit be a mission, or a miss?
因此，“好奇號”可能過于熱門了。但是“山寨的”探測之旅到底是任務，還是失誤呢？
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