評論
打印
Science and Technology Human spaceflight
科技 人類宇宙飛行
Fifty years have elapsed since a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, lit the blue touchpaper on the era of manned spaceflight.
自從蘇聯(lián)宇航員尤里加加林點燃了載人航天時代開始的藍色火絨線，五十年已經(jīng)過去了。
Progress was rapid-only eight years separated Gagarin's flight from the infinitely more complicated mission that put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon.
進步是飛快的，加加林飛行僅八年后，人類完成了更復(fù)雜的行動，將宇航員尼爾·阿姆斯特朗和巴茲奧爾德林送達月球表面。
Although the moon landings handed a temporary victory to America,
盡管登陸月球?qū)γ绹鴣碚f只是一時的勝利，
the Soviet Union dominated manned spaceflight for the next decade,
蘇聯(lián)在接下來的十年之內(nèi)控制了載人航天，
including some pioneering missions to the Salyut space stations to test the effects of long periods aloft and several extended missions to Salyut's successor Mir, in the late 1980s.
包括在禮炮號空間站上進行一些開拓性對于長時間懸浮的測試，還包括在八十年代后期在禮炮號接任者米爾號空間站上的任務(wù)。
Only with the rise of the Space Shuttle programme, beginning in 1981, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union a decade later, did America retake the crown.
只有在1981年開始的空間航天飛機項目，以及十年之后的蘇聯(lián)解體，才讓美國取得了空間技術(shù)領(lǐng)域的桂冠。
Manned spaceflight is no longer a two-horse race.
載人航天領(lǐng)域不再是兩匹馬的比賽。
China entered it in 2003.
中國在2003年也加入了競爭。
A year later three privately financed suborbital missions were made in Mojave Aerospace's craft, SpaceShipOne.
2004年，三艘私人融資任務(wù)在的在莫哈韋航天飛船“太空船一號”上進行。
Rocketeering, though, has always been dangerous.
盡管火箭技術(shù)一直以來都是危險的。
Four missions have killed 18 astronauts between them.
四次任務(wù)已經(jīng)導(dǎo)致18名宇航員身亡。
Two were Soviet (Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11) and two American (the shuttles Challenger and Columbia).
兩次是蘇聯(lián)的火箭(聯(lián)盟一號和聯(lián)盟二號),兩次是美國的火箭（挑戰(zhàn)者號和哥倫比亞號)。
Other astronauts have died in accidents on Earth.
其余的宇航員是在地面事故中喪生的。
After the losses of Challenger and Columbia,
挑戰(zhàn)者號和哥倫比亞號的事故之后,
America's shuttle fleet was grounded, which explains the big drop in missions following both accidents.
美國的飛船艦隊也著陸了，這就解釋了兩次事故之后空間任務(wù)的大量減少。
