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As NASA's focus turned from supersonic flight to flights in space, she was therefore deeply involved, though still behind the scenes. This excited her, because if her first love was mathematics—counting everything as a child, from plates to silverware to the number of steps to the church—her second was astronomy, and the uncountable stars. A celestial globe now joined the calculator on her desk. She had to plot the trajectories of spacecraft, developing the launch window and making sure—as soon as humans took off—that the module could get back safely.
隨著美國國家航空航天局的工作重點(diǎn)從超音速飛行轉(zhuǎn)向太空飛行，盡管凱瑟琳仍在幕后工作，但她也因此深深參與其中。這讓她很興奮，因?yàn)樗某鯌偈菙?shù)學(xué)——在她還是個(gè)孩子的時(shí)候就不停地計(jì)算，從盤子到銀器，從臺階數(shù)到教堂——她第二喜歡的是天文學(xué)，還有數(shù)不清的星星。這時(shí)，她桌上除計(jì)算器外又多了一個(gè)天球儀。凱瑟琳需要繪制航天器的軌跡， 開發(fā)發(fā)射窗口并確保一旦人類起飛，該航天器能安全返回。
This involved dozens of equations to calculate, at each moment, which bit of earth the spacecraft was passing over, making allowances for the tilt of the craft and the rotation of the planet. She ensured that Alan Shepard's mercury capsule splashed down where it could be found quickly in 1961, and that John Glenn in 1962 could return safely from his first orbits of the earth. Indeed, until "the girl", as he called her (she was 43), had checked the figures by hand against those of the newfangled electronic computer, he refused to go.
她需要考慮飛船的傾斜度和行星的自轉(zhuǎn)，這涉及到幾十個(gè)方程來計(jì)算飛船在每個(gè)時(shí)刻所經(jīng)過的是地球的哪一部分。凱瑟琳要確保艾倫·謝潑德的水星太空艙在1961年降落到能很快找到它的地方，還有確保約翰·格倫在1962年可以從他第一次繞地球運(yùn)行的軌道上安全返回。他稱凱瑟琳為“那個(gè)女孩”(當(dāng)時(shí)她43歲)，事實(shí)上，直到凱瑟琳用手算把這些數(shù)字與最新的電子計(jì)算機(jī)的數(shù)字核對過之后，他才肯去。
That checking took her a day and a half. Later she calculated the timings for the first moon landing (with the astronauts' return), and worked on the space shuttle. She also devised a method by which astronauts, with one star observation checked against a star chart, could tell where they were. But in the galaxy of space-programme heroes, despite her 33 years in the flight research unit, for a long time she featured nowhere.
那次檢查花了她一天半的時(shí)間。后來她計(jì)算了第一次登月的時(shí)間(宇航員返回后)，還研究了航天飛機(jī)。她還設(shè)計(jì)了一種方法，宇航員可以根據(jù)星圖對一顆恒星進(jìn)行觀測，從而確定自己的位置。盡管凱瑟琳在飛行研究部門工作了33年，但她在很長一段時(shí)間里都沒有被列為太空計(jì)劃的英雄。
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