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Doorway into Space
進入太空的門戶
Isaac Asimov
艾薩克·阿西莫夫
The space shuttle （航天飛機）is our doorway into space. It is the first true spaceship.
航天飛機是我們進入太空的門戶。它是第一艘名副其實的宇宙飛船。
Human beings have gone into space before. They have been doing it for years in throwaway vessels. People would go into space, and then the ship, with the people aboard, would drop back to Earth by parachute （降落傘）. The people would be picked up, but the ship would be scrapped （廢棄）.
人類先前已進入了太空。多年來，他們一直是乘坐用后隨即拋棄的飛行器進入太空的。人們進入太空，然后，載人的宇宙飛船再借助降落傘墜回地球。人是被接了回來，而飛船則被丟棄了。
The Shuttle, however, goes up like a spaceship and comes down like an airplane. There it is, ready to be used again.
然而，航天飛機像宇宙飛船一樣升空，隨后像飛機一樣降落。它就停在那里，隨時準備再次使用。
The Shuttle won't be going to any other worlds. It will just go into orbit around the Earth and then return. That is why it is called a Shuttle. It goes and returns. But when it goes, it carries a great many things in its roomy storage space. It can carry satellites of all kinds. When it gets into orbit it releases the satellites. When the Shuttle returns, the satellites stay in orbit. You don't have to supply each satellite with a separate throwaway rocket engine.
航天飛機不會去任何其他星球，只進入地球軌道，然后返回。這就是它為什么被稱作“航天飛機”的緣故。它能往返飛行，不過去的時候，它寬敞的貨物艙里滿載大量貨物。它能裝載各種各樣的衛星。進入軌道后，就將衛星卸下。航天飛機返回時，衛星就留在軌道上。你用不著給每個衛星提供各自的分離式火箭發動機。
More importantly, the Shuttle can carry parts of large structures and park them in orbit. Eventually, there will be a great many structures, all near each other, all circling the Earth.
更重要的是，航天飛機能攜帶大型建筑結構的部件，并把它們停放在軌道上。最終會有許許多多的建筑構件，相互挨得很近，全都圍繞地球運行。
Astronauts （宇航員）can go up and, in their spacesuits, leave the Shuttle and put all the structures together. Finally, they will have one big, complicated structure, something that would be far too big to have launched all in one piece.
宇航員可以隨機升空，穿著宇航服離開航天飛機，將所有的建筑構件拼裝起來。到最后，他們就擁有了一座龐大而復雜的建筑物，那玩意兒實在太大，不可能作為整體一并發射出去。
