How Curiosity got us to Mars - Bobak Ferdowsi

我们对火星有多好奇-Bobak Ferdowsi

Transcriber: Andrea McDonough Reviewer: Bedirhan Cinar

翻译人员: Eric Zhao 校对人员: Ying Wang

About 100 days ago,

大约100天之前，

我们在另一个星球----火星的表面上

we landed a two-ton SUV on the surface of another planet,

成功降落了一个2吨重的SUV(Sports Utility Vehicle, 多功能车）

on the surface of Mars.

在火星表面。

This is one of the first pictures we took there with our rover,

这是我们用漫游器最早拍下的照片之一，

looking out at Mount Sharp.

面朝着夏普山（Mount Sharp）的方向。

I kind of cry a little bit,

对我来说，看到这幅照片的时候，

choke up, when I see this picture.

我激动地几乎要哽咽落泪。

Why Mars and why do we look at these other planets?

为什么我们要探测火星，为什么我们要探测其它的星球呢？

Part of it is to understand our own planet --

部分原因是为了了解我们自己居住的地球，

我们拥有的是什么样的环境？

what's the context for us?

我们居住在一个神奇的星球上，

We live on this amazing planet, but Mars is a lot like Earth.

不过，火星在很多方面和地球相似。

它们的大小差不多。

It's similar in size.

During the daytime, it can get up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

白天的时候，

火星上的气温可以高达70华氏度。

So, it's so like Earth, but at the same time,

所以，火星和地球很相似，但与此同时，

你也知道，这是一片荒芜贫瘠的大陆，

this is a barren landscape.

You don't see any trees, you don't see any cactuses growing,

你看不到任何树木，

看不到仙人掌生长，

也看不到类似的生命迹象。

anything like that.

因此，今天我将会告诉你们

Today I'm going to tell you about how we got from Earth to Mars

我们是如何从地球到达火星的，

and why it's so cool.

还有为什么这个项目真的很酷。

So one of the things we start with is a blank sheet of paper.

我们最早是从

一张白纸开始的。

我们从之前2004年的任务---

We knew from the previous missions in 2004, Spirit and Opportunity,

勇气号和机会号的探险中得知，

火星上曾经是有水的，

there was water on Mars in the past.

但是，下一步要探测什么呢？

But what's the next step?

We're looking for an even more fundamental level of,

我们想从一个更基础的角度

what does it take to have life survive?

来研究生命存在的原因，

并了解相关的

And so, to have that kind of knowledge and understanding,

知识和理论。

we have to carry a mass amount of instruments.

因此我们需要大量的仪器。

要把那种

We have to carry the kind of labs

that people have whole rooms devoted to on Earth

在地球上用整个房间才能装下的实验室设备

装进一个很小的车厢里。

inside of, essentially, a small car.

And we shrunk it all down

我们所做的是把这些全都缩小至

to something that weighs about as much as I do,

和我差不多重的程度，

然后装进这个漫游器里，

and then put it inside of this rover that weighs as much as your car does.

漫游器的重量和你们开的车差不多重。

现在，这个漫游器已经在火星表面上了，

And that rover is now on the surface of Mars,

but it's so heavy,

但它实在是太重了，

and so it kind of takes a special challenge for us

因此给我们带来了一个特殊的挑战----

to make it all work and come together.

如何让这些仪器相互配合、正常运作。

So we look at our tool of, what do we have to land stuff on Mars?

我们检查了手边的工具，

有哪一种材料是能在火星上着陆的呢？

一种方法是使用安全气囊。

And one of the options is airbags.

We've done it before.

我们以前也用过。

Airbags are pretty cool, they bounce around a lot.

安全气囊非常赞，

它的缓冲效果很好。

You could never put a human inside of an airbag,

但你无法把人塞进安全气囊里，

因为他们会被压扁。

because they would get squashed.

But the problem with airbags is, the airbags you see here,

不过，安全气囊有个问题，

就是你现在所看到的这个

which landed the smaller rover -- it's like 400 pounds, the entire rover --

帮助小型漫游器着陆的安全气囊，

大约有400磅重，整个漫游器，

were about the size of this room.

大概有这个教室这么大。

So you can imagine the size of airbags it would take

你可以想像一下安全气囊的大小，

它需要帮助一个2吨重的漫游器在火星上着陆。

to land a two-ton rover on Mars.

And they'd have to be made out of materials

因此安全气囊必须得用

很可能今天都不存在的材料制成，

that don't even exist today,

所以我们就需要开发一种

so it'd be some kind of exotic material that we'd have to develop

特殊材料，而且还不一定能成功。

and it may or may not work.

So, what about rockets?

那么，用火箭如何呢？

You know, you see all the rocket ships landing in old movies,

这是我们喜欢的一种方式，

你们都在电影和其它地方

看到过火箭船着陆的镜头吧，

all rockets on the bottom -- it's a cool idea.

所有的火箭都在最下层，

这是一个很棒的主意。

It works when they're pretty light still,

如果火箭很轻的话，运作起来就非常完美，

但问题是，

but the problem is, these rockets have to be pretty strong

这些火箭必须非常坚固，

才能确实保证你平稳地在火星上着陆。

to actually softly land you on Mars.

因此，这些火箭必须非常强劲，

And so they would be so powerful they could dig holes into the ground

有可能会在表面砸出一个洞，

and then you would just end up inside of a hole

让你降落在这个洞里，

and not be able to drive out of it.

却没办法跑到洞外面去。

So, not the best design.

所以，这并不是最佳方案。

But what if I could take the rockets and move them up?

不过，如果我可以做到移动这些火箭呢？

这就是我们想到的方案。

And that's what we came up with.

It's a rocket-powered jet pack; we call it the Sky Crane.

这实际上是一个装有火箭发动机的喷气发动组件，

我们称其为空中起重机。

Basically, this big rocket sits on top of our rover

基本上是这样运作的：

这台大火箭位于漫游器的顶端，

and when we're ready to land, the rocket hovers in place

当我们准备着陆时，

火箭会盘旋在上空，

然后我们会慢慢降低漫游器的高度。

and we slowly lower the rover to the ground.

And then we touch down, we're actually on the wheels,

当漫游器着陆时，

轮子部分首先碰到火星表面，

这样，从好奇号降落在火星上的第一天起，就可以四处探测了。

we're ready to drive, day one.

But in addition to that, the scientists were like,

除此之外，

你也知道，科学家们

"We actually want to go somewhere interesting."

总是想去一些有趣的地方。

The last two missions were cool,

上次的两个任务尽管非常棒，

但是它们基本上都降落在

but they basically landed in what was like landing in the plains or desert.

类似于沙漠的平原上，

Not very exciting.

并没有那么令人激动。

We all know from the exciting places on Earth like the Grand Canyon,

我们都知道，地球上最激动人心的地方，

例如大峡谷之类的，

对科学家来说，才是最令人激动的，

those are, for the scientists, the most interesting,

因为你可以看到整个地质结构，

because you see that whole layer,

在一个地方就可以一次性看到数千年的历史。

you see years and years of history all in one place.

The same thing is true for where we landed.

我们希望能在火星上着陆到类似的地方，

We wanted to land somewhere that was unique,

一些很特别的地方，

that had this crater wall where things had been dug up for us,

最好有那种火山口壁，

有已经挖好的山洞，

有拔地而起的山丘。

where mountains were pushing things up.

不过这里有个问题，如果采用旧系统，

But the problem is, if you landed with the older systems,

you could've landed on the side of that mountain and just tumbled off,

你就可能会降落在

山的另一边，这样好奇号可能会沿着山脉滚下来，

也可能降落在悬崖峭壁上，

could've been the side of a cliff, the crater wall or a large boulder.

火山口的内侧，

或一块巨石上。

So we needed a kind of technology

所以我们需要一种技术，

能帮助我们着陆到一个很小的地方，

to help us land in a very small area,

and that was this little guided entry from Apollo.

这就是我们从阿波罗号获得的这个小小的导航图，

We took it from the 1960s.

摄于20世纪60年代。

We flew over like the manned vehicle, because they have to pick up men,

有了导航，好奇号就好像是有人在驾驶一样，

况且最终它们也是要载人的，

你不能不分地点地乱着陆，

you can't just land all over the place.

我们最后准确无误地着陆在正中央。

And then we landed, like, spot-on in the middle.

And in fact, it was so spot-on that when we did it,

事实上，当我们实际操作时，

是非常精确的，

it was basically like a quarterback launching towards Mars --

基本上我们就像一个四分卫，

朝着火星发球，

就好像一个

like a quarterback, though, that was in Seattle,

人在西雅图的四分卫，

throwing at a receiver that was moving here in Giants Stadium.

朝着

在巨人体育馆里移动的接球手扔球。

That's how accurate we were. Kind of awesome.

我们就是如此地精确，

非常棒。

但是只有一次机会，

But you only get one shot,

所以我们必须要设计一个

and so we actually have to design a system

that we can build and test and operate,

可以架设、

测试、

并运行的系统，

and so it's not just about can we get it to Mars,

这不仅仅是关于我们如何能到达火星，

but, if it's only one chance,

如果只有一次机会，

how do you make sure that one chance goes well?

你如何保证一次就能成功？

So there's all these processes to make sure things are built properly.

所有流程

确保一切都能顺利进行。

Then we go out to the desert and drive around and test it.

我们去了一趟沙漠，

开着车到处跑，做测试，

We fly things in F-18s to make sure the radar systems work in high speeds.

用F-18进行飞行测试，

确保雷达系统在高速下仍可正常工作。

最重要的是，我们也测试了整个工作组，

Then, most importantly, we test the team to make sure they know how to operate it.

确保他们知道如何来操作。

我们不希望由于发送了错误的指令，

We don't want to miss it because we sent the wrong command

而意外地错过了这次机会，

and now it's going to be rebooting forever.

只能无限期地等待下一次任务的来临。

So, that guy Fred there, he did a lot of that.

坐在那边的弗雷德做了很多这方面的工作。

And then we launched it on this rocket to Mars.

之后，我们在这台要朝火星发射的火箭上

安装了整个系统，

We landed 2,000 pounds on Mars,

我们最终在火星上着陆了2000磅重的东西，

but the entire thing was about 10,000 pounds

但是在地球上起飞的时候，

when we lifted off from Earth,

所有这些东西实际上大约有1万磅重，

包括燃料，太阳光射线

all the fuel and the solar arrays and everything else that we needed.

和其它我们需要的所有东西。

需要再一次强调的是，我们是非常的精确，

And, again, we were so accurate

that we landed in this, like, little pin-point on Mars.

正好降落在火星上的这个小点上。

In the meantime, though, we had to design a landing system that worked.

与此同时，我们也要设计

一个能运作的着陆系统。

And I told you about the actual physics of it, but here's the catch:

我告诉过你们其中的物理原理，

现在我们再来回顾一下：

Mars is about 14 minutes away from Earth in light speed,

光线从火星到地球要花14分钟，

which means if I try to control it with a joystick,

这意味着如果我尝试用操纵杆控制，

I would be always controlling to 14 minutes in advance,

我会一直

有一个14分钟的提前，所以这样是行不通的。

so it wouldn't work.

我们必须发挥所有的智慧、

So we had to give it all the smarts and knowledge it needed to make it happen.

运用所有的知识

来解决这点。

我们所做的是，

So we built in all these smarts and algorithms

对好奇号植入了所有的这些管理程序和算法，

and told it here's what you're going to have to do,

告诉它这是我们希望你做的事情：

and it goes from basically five times the speed of a speeding bullet

从

五倍于一颗飞行中的子弹的速度

to about a baby's crawl,

到一般婴儿的爬行的速度。

all within about seven minutes,

都要在7分钟里完成，

which are called the seven minutes of terror,

这也被称作“恐怖7分钟”，

因为我紧张得快要吐出来了。

because I was about to throw up.

(Laughter)

But today we're on the surface of Mars, and this was one of the panoramas we took

但是今天我们已经到达火星表面了，

这是我们在着陆几天之后

拍摄的全景图之一，

a couple days after we landed,

and it's amazing to me, because you look at this,

我认为这对我来说，是非常不可思议的，

看这个地方，你可以看到大峡谷，

and can see the Grand Canyon,

you can see your own planet, you can imagine walking on the surface.

看到自己居住的星球，

你可以想象在火星表面上行走。

And so what we're going to do and continue to do

所以，我们即将要做的，

也是继续要做的，

是去了解“为什么”，是什么使得火星如此特别，

is to understand what makes Mars so special

and what makes Earth even more special

是什么使得地球更加特别，

that we're all here together today.

能让我们今天相聚在这里。

So we'll see where Curiosity takes us --

所以我们等待着，看好奇号将会把我们带向何方，

不仅仅是载着我们所制造的漫游器，

not just our rover,

but our sense of exploration.

还有我们的探索精神。

谢谢大家。

Thank you.

(Applause)