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Space flight
宇宙飛行
Tally ho!
呔嗬！
The Starship SN8 is ready for lift off
星際飛船SN8已準(zhǔn)備好起航
If all goes well, Elon Musk's plan to conquer the universe will soon take another step forward, with the flight of Starship SN8, a rocket built by his company, SpaceX. SN8 is expected to rise from its launch pad at Boca Chica, in Texas, sometime between December 4th and 6th. (SpaceX have not confirmed this, but a local flight restriction has been imposed on the area for that period.) The idea is that it will fly to an altitude of 15km, cut its engines, tip slowly forward until it is parallel with Earth's surface, and let gravity take its course. Then, shortly before it hits the ground, it will fire its thrusters again to realign itself vertically and will thus come gently to rest on a landing pad a few hundred metres away from where it took off.
如果一切順利，隨著SpaceX公司制造的“SN8星艦”火箭的飛行，埃隆·馬斯克征服宇宙的計劃將很快向前邁進一步。SN8預(yù)計將于12月4日至6日間從德克薩斯州博卡奇卡的發(fā)射臺升空。(SpaceX尚未證實這一點，但該地區(qū)在這段時間內(nèi)實施了飛行限制。)計劃是，SN8將飛到15公里的高度，關(guān)閉引擎，慢慢向前傾斜直到與地球表面平行，并讓重力來決定它的路線。然后，在落地前不久它將再次啟動推進器，重新進行垂直調(diào)整，之后緩慢落在離起飛地點幾百米遠的著陸臺上。
SN8 is, as its name suggests, the eighth in the current series of prototypes for SpaceX's proposed Starship (SN stands for "serial number"). It is, though, the first to have a nose cone, and thus to assume the distinctive atmosphere-penetrating shape normally sported by space rockets. It also has more oomph than its predecessors. Previous SNS have used just one of SpaceX's Raptor engines, and have, if launched (some were used for ground tests), reached a height of no more than 150 metres. SN8 includes three Raptors—half the number expected for the finished design.
正如它的名字所示，SN8是SpaceX目前計劃中的星際飛船系列原型中的第八艘(SN代表“序列號”)。不過，它是第一個擁有錐鼻的火箭，因此它具備一般太空火箭所具備的獨特的能夠穿透大氣層的形狀。它還比它的前輩們更具魅力。以前的SNS只使用了SpaceX的猛禽引擎中的一個，而且一旦發(fā)射(一些被用于地面測試)，其高度不超過150米。SN8則包含3個猛禽引擎，是預(yù)計完成設(shè)計數(shù)量的一半。
Strictly, SN8 is a prototype of only the second stage of the Starship that SpaceX proposes eventually to build. Its successors are intended to sit on an as-yet-to-beconstructed "Super Heavy" rocket that will deliver the bulk of the firepower. This firststage vehicle is expected to house up to 37 Raptors. These will give it double the thrust developed by the first stage of a Saturn V, the launch vehicle America used for its crewed Moon missions. And the Moon is, indeed, an intended destination, though the craft will earn most of its bread and butter ferrying goods and people into orbits close to Earth—a task for which it has a capacity of 100 tonnes.
嚴格來說，SN8只是SpaceX計劃最終建造的星際飛船的第二階段的原型。它的下一任計劃坐在一種尚未建造的“超級重型”火箭之上，這種火箭將提供大部分的火力。第一階段的運載工具預(yù)計將容納37架猛禽。這將使其推力達到美國用于載人登月任務(wù)的運載火箭“土星5號”第一階段時的兩倍。雖說這艘飛船的主要收入來源是運送貨物和人員到接近地球的軌道——這是一項載重量為100噸的任務(wù)，但月球是其真正的預(yù)訂目的地。
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