The world's first crowdsourced space traffic monitoring system | Moriba Jah

翻译人员: psjmz mz 校对人员: Lipeng Chen

I am an astrodynamicist --

我是一个天体力学家，

you know, like that guy Rich Purnell in the movie "The Martian."

就像《火星救援》里的瑞奇·珀内尔。

And it's my job to study and predict motion of objects in space.

而我的工作就是研究并预测 太空中物体的运动轨迹。

Currently we track about one percent of hazardous objects on orbit --

当前我们正在追踪轨道上 大约百分之一的危险物体——

hazardous to services like location,

那些比如威胁到定位服务、

agriculture, banking,

农业、银行业、

television and communications,

通信与电话业、

and soon -- very soon --

并且很快——比你想的要快，

even the internet itself.

会威胁到互联网本身的物体。

Now these services are not protected from, roughly, half a million objects

目前这些服务设施 暴露在大约 50 万

the size of a speck of paint

从一粒油漆

all the way to a school bus in size.

直到校车大小物体的威胁中。

A speck of paint,

一点油漆

traveling at the right speed,

以适当的速度运行时，

impacting one of these objects,

撞击其中一个设备，

could render it absolutely useless.

可能让它彻底报废。

But we can't track things as small as a speck of paint.

但我们无法跟踪像一块油漆 那么小的东西。

We can only track things as small as say, a smartphone.

我们只能跟踪到小至，比如说 智能手机那样的东西。

So of this half million objects that we should be concerned about,

所以在这 50 万 我们应该关心的物体中，

we can only track about 26,000 of these objects.

我们只能跟踪其中的 26000 个。

And of these 26,000, only 2,000 actually work.

而这 26000 个中， 只有 2000 个真正有用。

Everything else

其他

is garbage.

都是垃圾。

That's a lot of garbage.

有很多的垃圾。

To make things a little bit worse,

让事情变得更糟糕的是，

most of what we launch into orbit never comes back.

我们发射到轨道的 大部分物体永远不会返回。

We send the satellite in orbit,

我们把卫星发射到轨道，

it stops working, it runs out of fuel,

它停止了工作，燃料用尽，

and we send something else up ...

然后我们发射其他的上去……

and then we send up something else ...

接着又发射其他的上去……

and then something else.

一波接一波。

And every once in a while,

每隔一段时间，

two of these things will collide with each other

其中两个物体会相互碰撞

or one of these things will explode,

或者其中一个物体会爆炸，

or even worse,

或者更糟糕，

somebody might just happen to destroy one of their satellites on orbit,

有人可能恰好在轨道 摧毁他们的一颗卫星，

and this generates many, many more pieces,

这产生了更多的碎片，

most of which also never come back.

很多碎片再也不会回到地球。

Now these things are not just randomly scattered in orbit.

如今这些物体不仅只是 随机散落在轨道，

It turns out that given the curvature of space-time,

实际上，给定时空的曲率，

there are ideal locations

存在一些理想的位置

where we put some of these satellites --

可以放置一些卫星——

think of these as space highways.

可以把这些位置 想象成太空高速公路。

Very much like highways on earth,

非常像地球上的高速公路，

these space highways can only take up a maximum capacity of traffic

这些太空高速公路只能 占用最大的运输能力

to sustain space-safe operations.

来维持空间的安全运作。

Unlike highways on earth,

不像地球上的高速公路，

there are actually no space traffic rules.

这里事实上没有太空交通规则。

None whatsoever, OK?

一点儿也没有。

Wow.

喔。

What could possibly go wrong with that?

这能有什么问题呢？

(Laughter)

（笑声）

Now, what would be really nice

如果我们有像太空交通地图

is if we had something like a space traffic map,

那样的东西会很棒，

like a Waze for space that I could look up

比如 Waze 太空地图可以让我

and see what the current traffic conditions are in space,

看到太空的交通状况，

maybe even predict these.

甚至能进行预测。

The problem with that, however,

但问题在于，

is that ask five different people,

问 5 个不同的人，

"What's going on in orbit?

“轨道现在怎样了？

Where are things going?"

这些物体去哪了？”

and you're probably going to get 10 different answers.

你可能会得到 10 个不同的答案。

Why is that?

为什么会那样？

It's because information about things on orbit is not commonly shared either.

因为轨道上物体的信息 并没有充分共享。

So what if we had a globally accessible,

那么，如果我们有一个 全球可访问的、

open and transparent space traffic information system

开放和透明的空间交通信息系统，

that can inform the public of where everything is located

可以告知公众物体的位置，

to try to keep space safe and sustainable?

以保证太空安全和可持续会怎样呢？

And what if the system could be used

如果这个系统可以用来

to form evidence-based norms of behavior --

形成以证据为基础的行为规范——

these space traffic rules?

这些太空交通规则，会怎样呢？

So I developed ASTRIAGraph,

所以我开发了 ASTRIAGraph，

the world's first crowdsourced, space traffic monitoring system

在德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校 诞生的世界首个

at the University of Texas at Austin.

众包的太空交通监控系统。

ASTRIAGraph combines multiple sources of information from around the globe --

ASTRIAGraph 结合了来自 全球各地的信息源——

government, industry and academia --

政府部门，工业界和学术界——

and represents this in a common framework that anybody can access today.

并用今天任何人都可以访问 的公共框架进行展示。

Here, you can see 26,000 objects orbiting the earth,

在这里，你可以看到有 26000 个 绕地球运行的物体，

multiple opinions,

来自不同的角度，

and it gets updated in near real time.

并以接近实时的速度更新。

But back to my problem of space traffic map:

但回到我的空间交通地图问题：

What if you only had information from the US government?

如果你只有美国政府的信息会怎样？

Well, in that case, that's what your space traffic map would look like.

在这种情况下，这是你的 太空交通地图的样子。

But what do the Russians think?

但俄罗斯人会怎么想？

That looks significantly different.

这看起来就明显不同。

Who's right? Who's wrong?

谁是对的？谁是错的？

What should I believe?

我应该相信什么？

What could I trust?

我应该信任谁？

This is part of the issue.

这是一部分问题。

In the absence of this framework to monitor space-actor behavior,

缺乏这个框架来 监控太空物体行为，

to monitor activity in space --

去监控太空活动——

where these objects are located --

这些设备的位置——

to reconcile these inconsistencies

去调和这些矛盾

and make this knowledge commonplace,

和让这些知识变得司空见惯，

we actually risk losing the ability

我们其实是冒着失去

to use space for humanity's benefit.

太空用于人类福祉的风险。

Thank you very much.

谢谢大家。

(Applause and cheers)

（鼓掌并欢呼）