【正文】 Removing the requirement to land simplifies the task enormously. No plex manoeuvring into a Mars orbit is necessary. No landing craft is needed, nor any survival gear for use on the Martian surface. That saves fuel and, more importantly, launch mass (the overriding concern for any space mission). Mr Tito’s team hopes to wring further savings by launching in 2018, in order to take advantage of a rare set of celestial circumstances that allow a gravitypowered trip to Mars and back in 501 days, instead of the two years that w。軌道力學(xué)正是提托的專長(zhǎng)之一。通過巧妙地設(shè)計(jì)其軌道，該飛船在飛往火星的過程中只需要使用一次自己的引擎，隨后，動(dòng)力將會(huì)轉(zhuǎn)由重力提供。對(duì)提托的計(jì)劃來說，這意味著雖然他的宇航員會(huì)飛至距火星表面約140公里（90英里）的地方，但實(shí)際上并不會(huì)在火星著陸。When the stars are right等待時(shí)機(jī)Both missions hope to use SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, a planned upgrade of its existing Falcon rocket. But even with access to cheap rockets, flying to Mars without the financial firepower of a government requires clever, and drastic, costcutting. In Mr Tito’s case, this means that although his astronauts will fly within about 140km (90 miles) of the Martian surface, they will not actually land. His mission calls for a twoperson craft—possibly a variant of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which is already used to ferry cargo to the ISS—to be sent on a “free return” trajectory to Mars. By clever design of its orbit, the craft can be sent to Mars with a single burn of its rocket engine. From thereon in, gravity takes over. The craft will swing around Mars and emerge on a trajectory precisely calculated to have it reenter Earth’s atmosphere several months later, with only minimal course corrections needed along the way. Orbital mechanics is one of Mr Tito’s specialities. Before he left JPL to bee an investment manager, he designed orbits for Mars probes.兩項(xiàng)計(jì)劃都希望使用太空探索技術(shù)公司計(jì)劃中的獵鷹重型火箭其現(xiàn)有的獵鷹火箭的升級(jí)版。好奇號(hào)漫游車在其火星航程中獲得的信息剛剛發(fā)表在《科學(xué)》上，表明宇航員將會(huì)受到接近于NASA宇航員的最大終生限值的輻射劑量。阿波羅計(jì)劃的宇航員可以和自己的地面指揮員進(jìn)行近乎實(shí)時(shí)的對(duì)講，而火星宇航員則要面臨長(zhǎng)達(dá)40分鐘的應(yīng)答延時(shí)。這意味著需要非?？煽康赜钪骘w船。其一，火星要遠(yuǎn)的多得多。 far harder than sending them to the Moon. For one thing, Mars is much farther away. The Apollo missions took three days to get there, but flight times to Mars are measured in months. That would require an utterly reliable spacecraft. The vast distance imposes a munication delay, too. Whereas the Apollo astronauts could talk to their groundbased controllers more or less in real time, Martian astronauts would face delays of up to 40 minutes between asking a question and getting an answer.樂觀的言論只是一方面，還有好幾點(diǎn)值得懷疑。正如提托在其公布“靈感火星”計(jì)劃時(shí)說的：“按照我們現(xiàn)在的行事方式，我們永遠(yuǎn)都不會(huì)有開始。巴拉克?奧巴馬的國策便是要在21世紀(jì)30年代完成火星的載人飛行任務(wù)。技術(shù)研究已經(jīng)完成，宇航員選拔正在進(jìn)行，與建造太空船的公司的協(xié)議也正在簽署中。Mr Lansdorp admits that, on hearing about his plans, people’s first response is that he must be crazy. But both he and Mr Tito (who started his career as an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, in Pasadena, which runs NASA’s unmanned Mars missions) insist they are serious. Technical studies have been done, astronaut applications are being processed and deals are being signed with the firms that will build the spacecraft.蘭斯多普承認(rèn)，人們?cè)诼牭剿挠?jì)劃后，第一反應(yīng)便是他肯定是瘋了。艾龍?馬斯科毫不遮掩自己對(duì)火星的野心，他的火箭公司太空探索技術(shù)公司已經(jīng)在向國際空間站（ISS）運(yùn)送貨物。阿波羅月球計(jì)劃早早便被終止，全球的宇航員過去的41年里都在近地軌道中逡巡不前。沃納?馮?布勞恩是設(shè)計(jì)了土星五號(hào)月球火箭的天才，他在自己1948年出版的《火星計(jì)劃》一書中便開始籌劃火星探險(xiǎn)，在阿姆斯特朗和奧爾德林博士成功登月后不久他便向當(dāng)時(shí)的總統(tǒng)理查德?尼克松拋出了一份火星載人航天計(jì)劃。For that reason, many of those watching the two astronauts on their blackandwhite televisions could have been forgiven for thinking that going to the Moon was simply the first step in a human expansion into the solar system. Indeed, that had long been the dream of the space buffs who made the Moon missions possible. Wernher von Braun, the genius who designed the Saturn V Moon rockets—and who had been planning Mars expeditions since the publication, in 1948, of his book “Das Marsprojekt”—pitched a crewed Mars mission to thenPresident Richard Nixon soon after Armstrong and Dr Aldrin landed.正因如此，對(duì)于許多在自己的黑白電視上注視著這兩名宇航員的人來說，認(rèn)為登上月球僅僅是人類在太陽系擴(kuò)張的第一步也是情有可原的。自萊特兄弟的飛機(jī)在北卡羅萊納州基蒂霍克附近搖搖晃晃的飛上天空之后的六十五年中，飛機(jī)讓世界變小，徹底改變了戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)，還創(chuàng)造了現(xiàn)代旅游產(chǎn)業(yè)。兩項(xiàng)新的私人航天計(jì)劃表明火星的誘惑依然如故。為了自由，年輕人應(yīng)當(dāng)沖向投票站。有一個(gè)變化會(huì)有所幫助的。但是這些人沒有錯(cuò)，只是牌亮得早了些。輝格黨財(cái)政大巨喬治?奧斯本（George Osborne）因?yàn)橹鲝埳鐣?huì)自由主義被托利黨人憎恨，又因?yàn)橹鲝埾鳒p開支被利維坦的走狗憎恨。The only politician whose views chime with the liberal young is the hedonistic mayor of London, Boris Johnson. Sterner sorts have a tougher time. George Osborne, the Whiggish chancellor of the exchequer, is loathed by Tories for his social liberalism and by Leviathan’s lackeys for his spending cuts. Nick Clegg, who has tried to steer his Liberal Democrat Party onto classically liberal ground, has even more foes. But these men are not wrong so much as early. They went into politics too soon. One change would help. If 18 to 24yearolds voted as reliably as the over65s, it would mean almost 2m more ballots, and politicians would have to pay attention. For the sake of freedom, the young should hurry to the polling station.僅有一位政要的觀點(diǎn)與年輕人的自由主義主張契合，他就是快樂論者倫敦市長(zhǎng)鮑里斯?約翰遜（Boris Johnson）。但是卻反對(duì)削減福利，又重新找到了對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)干預(yù)的歷史熱情，經(jīng)濟(jì)干預(yù)被稱作是“初步分配”。他們準(zhǔn)備好了，想在反移民問題的舞臺(tái)上大戰(zhàn)2015年大選。Far from courting them, the big political parties are running in precisely the opposite direction. Spooked by UKIP, the Conservatives shuffle their feet when the subject of gay marriage es up. They are preparing to fight the 2015 general election on an antiimmigration platform. Labour has social liberalism to spare. But it has opposed welfare cuts and rediscovered its historical enthusiasm for economic meddling, which it calls “predistribution”. The Chinese leadership quotes Adam Smith more often than Ed Miliband does.那些大型的政黨遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)討好他們，而采用相反的方式。大家在同性戀面前更加理性，但對(duì)近幾年的福利制度卻更加懷疑。今天心在不蔫的自由主義者就是明天可靠的選民。Hope I die before I pay tax死了就不用繳稅了Still, political parties should heed the young much more than they do. Although people’s fundamental political views do not change much as they age, their propensity to vote does. Today’s distracted libertarians are tomorrow’s dependable voter block. And, to the extent that people’s opinions do shift over their lifetimes, they tend to bend in one direction: towards the views