Tiny satellites that photograph the entire planet, every day | Will Marshall

翻译人员: Yixiong Zhu 校对人员: Yirui Fu

The Earth needs no introduction.

地球不用我介绍。

It needs no introduction in part because the Apollo 17 astronauts,

不用介绍，部分是因为阿波罗17号的宇航员

when they were hurtling around the moon in 1972,

在1972年奔向月球时，

took this iconic image.

拍下了这张经典照片。

It galvanized a whole generation of human beings

这张照片震撼了整整一代人，

to realize that we're on Spaceship Earth,

让大家意识到我们身处的“地球飞船”

fragile and finite as it is,

是如此脆弱，规模也如此有限，

and that we need to take care of it.

我们需要保护它。

But while this picture is beautiful, it's static,

不过尽管这张照片非常美丽，它是静态的，

and the Earth is constantly changing.

而地球每时每刻都在变化。

It's changing on days' time scales with human activity.

随着人类活动，它的变化以天为单位。

And the satellite imagery we have of it today is old.

我们的卫星图像却是旧的。

Typically, years old.

通常，是好几年前的。

And that's important because you can't fix what you can't see.

这点很重要，因为不知道的是无法改进的。

What we'd ideally want is images of the whole planet every day.

理想中，我们需要的是地球每天的照片。

So, what's standing in our way?

那么，为什么我们做不到？

What's the problem?

问题出在哪里？

This is the problem:

这就是问题：

Satellites are big, expensive and they're slow.

卫星太大，太贵，太慢。

This one weighs three tons.

这个3吨重。

It's six meters tall, four meters wide.

6米高，4米宽。

It took up the entire fairing of a rocket just to launch it.

要发射它，需要一整枚火箭。

One satellite, one rocket.

一颗卫星，一枚火箭。

It cost 855 million dollars.

要花费8.55亿美元。

Satellites like these have done an amazing job

这种卫星在我们了解地球的路上

at helping us to understand our planet.

起了极大作用。

But if we want to understand it much more regularly,

但如果我们想更常态地了解地球，

we need lots of satellites,

我们就需要很多卫星。

and this model isn't scalable.

而这个卫星却不是可分布式的。

So me and my friends, we started Planet Labs

于是，我和我的朋友们创立了“行星实验室”

to make satellites ultra-compact

来让卫星袖珍化，

and small and highly capable.

变小，而功能强大。

I'm going to show you what our satellite looks like:

我来给你们看我们的卫星：

This is our satellite.

这就是我们的卫星。

This is not a scale model,

这不是微缩模型，

this is the real size.

这就是真实大小。

It's 10 by 10 by 30 centimeters,

体积10×10×30立方厘米，

it weighs four kilograms,

重4公斤，

and we've stuffed the latest and greatest electronics

我们还把最新最好的电子仪器

and sensor systems into this little package

和传感器挤进了这个体积中，

so that even though this is really small,

所以尽管这个卫星非常小，

this can take pictures 10 times the resolution of the big satellite here,

它拍照的分辨率比刚才大型卫星还能高10倍，

even though it weighs one thousandth of the mass.

而重量只有千分之一。

And we call this satellite "Dove" — Thank you.

我们管这个卫星叫“鸽子”——谢谢。

(Applause)

（鼓掌）

We call this satellite "Dove,"

我们管这个卫星叫“鸽子”。

and we call it "Dove" because satellites are typically named

它叫“鸽子”，因为一般卫星是用

after birds, but normally birds of prey:

鸟类来命名，通常是猛禽类，

like Eagle, Hawk, Swoop, Kill, I don't know,

像老鹰，小鹰，雄鹰，还有什么，

Kestrel, these sort of things.

红隼，这一类的。

But ours have a humanitarian mission,

我们的卫星肩负人道主义任务，

so we wanted to call them Doves.

所以我们叫“鸽子”。

And we haven't just built them, though.

我们不仅仅进行了生产，

We've launched them.

我们还进行了发射。

And not just one, but many.

不只是一个，好多个。

It all started in our garage.

这一切都是从我们的车库中开始的。

Yes, we built our first satellite prototype in our garage.

是的，我们第一个原型卫星就是在车库里制作的。

Now, this is pretty normal for a Silicon Valley company that we are,

这在我们这种硅谷公司中很常见，

but we believe it's the first time for a space company.

但对于航天公司来说，我相信我们是第一个。

And that's not the only trick we learned from Silicon Valley.

我们从硅谷不仅仅学到了这一点。

We rapidly prototype our satellites.

我们还将卫星快速原型化。

We use "release early, release often" on our software.

我们的软件遵循“早发布，多发布”原则。

And we take a different risk approach.

我们的风险意识也不同。

We take them outside and test them.

我们把卫星拿出去试验。

We even put satellites in space just to test the satellites,

我们甚至发射卫星到太空，只是为了试验。

and we've learned to manufacture our satellites at scale.

我们还学会了规模化生产。

We've used modern production techniques

我们使用现代生产技术，

so we can build large numbers of them,

大批量进行建造。

I think for the first time.

我想这是第一次。

We call it agile aerospace,

我们管这个叫灵巧航天，

and that's what's enabled us to put so much capability into this little box.

这也是为什么我们的小盒子能有这么大能力。

Now, what has bonded our team over the years

还有，这么多年我们团队团结的纽带，

is the idea of democratizing access to satellite information.

是我们对卫星数据民主化获取的认同。

In fact, the founders of our company, Chris, Robbie and I,

我们公司的创始人，Chris，Robbie，还有我，

we met over 15 years ago at the United Nations

我们15年前在联合国开会时认识，

when they were hosting a conference about exactly that question:

当时联合国在开一个会，讨论的就是这个问题：

How do you use satellites to help humanity?

怎样用卫星促进人类发展？

How do you use satellites to help people in developing countries

怎样用卫星来帮助发展中国家

or with climate change?

或应对环境变化？

And this is what has bonded us.

这个问题成了我们之间的纽带。

Our entire team is passionate about using satellites to help humanity.

我们整个团队都想用卫星来帮助人类发展。

You could say we're space geeks,

你可以说我们是太空极客，

but not only do we care about what's up there,

但我们关心的不仅仅是天上，

we care about what's down here, too.

我们还关心地上的事情。

I'm going to show you a video

我来给你们放一段视频，

from just four weeks ago of two of our satellites

是4个星期前，我们的两颗卫星

being launched from the International Space Station.

从国际太空站上发射的场景。

This is not an animation,

这不是动画，

this is a video taken by the astronaut looking out of the window.

这是宇航员从窗口拍摄的。

It gives you a bit of a sense of scale of our two satellites.

从中你能感到我们卫星的大小。

It's like some of the smallest satellites ever

这真是最小的卫星

are being launched from the biggest satellite ever.

从最大的卫星上发射。

And right at the end, the solar array glints in the sun.

在视频最后，太阳板反射阳光。

It's really cool. Wait for it.

超级爽。等着，

Boom! Yeah. It's the money shot.

这儿！是吧。大片啊。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

So we didn't just launch two of them like this,

我们不仅仅是发射了这两个，

we launched 28 of them.

我们发射了28个。

It's the largest constellation of Earth-imaging satellites in human history,

这是人类历史上最大的地球成像卫星群，

and it's going to provide a completely radical new data set

它能为我们不断变化的星球

about our changing planet.

提供全新的数据集。

But that's just the beginning.

而这只是开始。

You see, we're going to launch more than 100 of these satellites

我们在明年将要发射

like these over the course of the next year.

超过100个这种卫星。

It's going to be the largest constellation of satellites in human history.

这将是人类历史上最大的卫星群。

And this is what it's going to do:

这些卫星要做的是：

Acting in a single-orbit plane that stays fixed with respect to the sun,

以太阳为基准，处在固定的轨道面上，

the Earth rotates underneath.

地球在卫星下面自转。

They're all cameras pointed down,

所有的相机都朝下，

and they slowly scan across as the Earth rotates underneath.

当地球自转时，相机就缓慢的扫描。

The Earth rotates every 24 hours,

地球24小时自转一圈，

so we scan every point on the planet every 24 hours.

我们24小时也就扫描一遍整个地球，

It's a line scanner for the planet.

就像行扫描仪一样。

We don't take a picture of anywhere on the planet every day,

我们不是每天拍照一些地方，

we take a picture of every single place on the planet every day.

我们是每天拍照地球上每一个地方。

Even though we launched these just a couple of weeks ago,

尽管我们发射这些才几个星期，

we've already got some initial imagery from the satellites

我们已经从卫星上获得了一些初始图像。

and I'm going to show it publicly for the first time right now.

现在我就首次对公众进行展示。

This is the very first picture taken by our satellite.

这是我们卫星的第一张照片。

It happened to be over UC-Davis' campus

在我们打开相机时，

in California when we turned the camera on.

卫星正处在加州大学戴维斯分校上空。

But what's even cooler is when

更爽的是，

we compare it to the previous latest image of that area,

我们拿这个照片跟之前的卫星照片作对比，

which was taken many months ago.

之前的照片拍摄于几个月前。

And the image on the left is from our satellite,

左边的是我们的卫星，

and we see buildings are being built.

能看到正在建造的建筑物。

The general point is that we will be able to track urban growth as it happens

这样我们就能实时追踪城市发展，

around the whole world in all cities, every day.

追踪世界上每一个城市，每一天。

Water as well.

水资源也可以。

Thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

（鼓掌）

We'll be able to see the extent of all water bodies

我们能够每天观测全世界

around the whole world every day and help water security.

的所有水域，保障水资源安全。

From water security to food security.

从水资源安全到农作物安全。

We'll see crops as they grow in all the fields

我们可以每天看到每一个田里

in every farmer's field around the planet every day.

正在生长的农作物，

and help them to improve crop yield.

来帮助他们增产。

This is a beautiful image that was taken

这张美丽的照片是

just a few hours ago when the satellite was flying over Argentina.

几个小时前卫星在阿根廷上空拍摄的。

The general point is

要点是，

there are probably hundreds and thousands of applications of this data,

这些数据可能有成百上千的应用方式，

I've mentioned a few, but there's others:

我才只提了一些，还有其他的：

deforestation, the ice caps melting.

追踪森林砍伐，追踪冰盖融化。

We can track all of these things, every tree on the planet every day.

我们每天可以追踪所有这些，以至于地球上的每棵树。

If you took the difference between today's image and yesterday's image,

如果你来分析今天照片和昨天照片的不同，

you'd see much of the world news — you'd see floods and fires and earthquakes.

你就可以看到很多世界新闻——洪水，火灾，地震。

And we have decided, therefore, that the best thing that we could do with our data

因此，我们决定，使用这些数据的最好方式，

is to ensure universal access to it.

是确保所有人都能获取。

We want to ensure everyone can see it.

我们想确保所有人都能看到。

Thank you. (Applause)

谢谢。（鼓掌）

We want to empower NGOs and companies and scientists and journalists

我们想授权NGO，公司，科学家，记者，

to be able to answer the questions that they have about the planet.

让他们能够回答他们关于地球的问题。

We want to enable the developer community to run their apps on our data.

我们想让研发社区能够用app来获取我们的数据。

In short, we want to democratize access to information about our planet.

总之，我们想让我们地球信息的获取民主化。

Which brings me back to this.

这就回到了之前所说的。

You see, this will be an entirely new global data set.

这将是全新的地球数据集。

And we believe that together,

我们相信一起，

we can help to take care of our Spaceship Earth.

我们能够帮助保护我们的”地球飞船“。

And what I would like to leave you with is the following question:

而我想给各位留下的问题是：

If you had access to imagery of the whole planet every single day,

如果你能获取全地球每一天的照片，

what would you do with that data?

你会拿这些数据做什么？

What problems would you solve?

你会解决什么问题？

What exploration would you do?

你会进行哪些探索？

Well, I invite you to come and explore with us.

我邀请你与我们来一同探索。

Thank you very much.

非常感谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）