原文:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzU1MDQwNTgzMg==&mid=2247491217&idx=1&sn=1b2976def1898114bcf87798bf3af213&chksm=fba04d36ccd7c42029bcf465dc16a0557b0bbf0920d200ff155b5472c4a2dea809a5da6c3b94#rd
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感谢思维导图作者
April,女,金融小白崽,边追经济学人边追星
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Space exploration
太空探索
英文部分选自经济学人20200725期Leaders版块
Space exploration
太空探索
Tread softly
小心翼翼 如履薄冰
Mars may be a pristine ecosystem. It should be protected
火星的生态系统可能还很原始,理应受到保护。
Earth aside, Mars is the most-studied planet in the solar system. Satellites zip around it. Rovers trundle over its surface. A helicopter may soon clatter through its skies, for a clutch of new missions are either on their way or planned to launch soon.
撇开地球不谈,火星是太阳系中被人们研究得最多的行星。卫星在其轨道上穿梭如织,探测器在其地表缓慢而行。过不了多久,也许还会有直升飞机在其上空轰鸣,毕竟当前为数不少的火星探测器要么正在进行,要么已蓄势待发。
The motive behind all this is the hope that Mars, like Earth, may support life—or may have done so in the past . And, as technology spreads and rocketry gets cheaper, more people want to join the search for what would, in effect, be Biosphere 2. At first, Mars was the province of America and the Soviet Union. Japan tried and failed to explore it in 1998. Europe sent its first mission in 2003. India launched its in 2013. The United Arab Emirates joined the fray on July 20th. And China, after a failure in 2011, dispatched another attempt on July 23rd. The time is not far off when even private missions might be feasible.
人们之所以如此关注火星,无非是希望火星能像地球一样承载生命——甚至曾经有过生命。随着科技的推广和火箭成本的下降,越来越多的人想要加入追寻生物圈2号之旅。起初,火星只是美苏两国的专有领域。日本在1998年尝试探测火星却折戟而归。欧洲在2003年成功完成第一次火星探测。印度在2013年发射了自己的火星探测器。阿联酋也在7月20日加入了火星探测大军。而中国自从2011年首次尝试失败后,于7月23日再次发射了火星探测器。私有领域开展火星探测计划或许也为时不远了。
Behind all this enthusiasm, though, is a worry. If Mars is sterile after all, or if any life which once dwelled there is now extinct, what people do to the planet by way of contamination with Earthly bugs probably does not matter. But if Martians do exist, even if they are but lowly bacteria (or something vaguely equivalent), that would mean Mars is a pristine ecosystem. Those wishing to investigate it should therefore tread lightly, for reasons of both moral and scientific prudence.
但在这些高涨的热情背后,尚有一项担忧。如果火星毫无生命迹象,或者曾有的生命早已灭绝,那么不管人们从地球带给火星任何污染,或许都无关紧要。但如果火星生命真的存在,哪怕存在的只是低级细菌(或者类似的低级形态生命),那都意味着火星仍是一个原始生态系统。无论是出于道德审慎还是科学审慎,探索火星都得小心翼翼。
Astrobiologists identify two kinds of risk in putative encounters with alien life forms that are not actually toting ray guns. The first, “forward contamination”, is that hardy micro-organisms from Earth might hitch a ride with a space probe and set up shop on landing. The second, “back contamination”, concerns the reverse: that samples returned to Earth might bring alien microbes with them.
天体生物学家认为,假如与外星生命形式相遇,即使它们实际上并不(像科幻小说中那样)携带着射线枪,我们依然会面临两种风险。首先是“正向污染”,即地球上的耐寒微生物可能会搭乘太空探测器,在着陆后繁衍生息。第二则是“反向污染“,与前者相反:返回地球的样本可能带回外来微生物。
The first risk is no longer theoretical. Scientists reckon that the rovers and landers already on Mars each play host to tens of thousands of microscopic Earthlings. Shielded from radiation by the probes themselves, these bacteria are probably dormant—but not dead.
第一种风险已不再是设想。科学家预计,每个已在火星着陆的探测器和着陆器上都携带着成千上万个地球微生物。由于探测器屏蔽了辐射,这些微生物可能处于休眠状态---但并未死亡。
Back contamination would require samples to be returned from Mars. That has not happened yet. But America’s newest rover is designed to stash samples of Martian regolith away, to be returned to Earth by a follow-up mission in 2031.
反向污染会在样品从火星送回时发生。目前这种情况尚未出现。不过,美国设计了最新的火星车,用来储存火星风化层的样本,并将在2031年通过后续任务送回地球。
Back contamination is the less worrying of the two. Lurid suggestions that Martian bugs might infect human beings ignore the fact that their biochemistry would almost certainly be too different from that of terrestrial organisms for this to happen. Sealed laboratories could provide reassurance for sticklers.
两者相较,反向污染倒不那么让人担忧。有人认为,火星上的细菌可能会感染人类。此番耸人听闻的说法忽略了一个事实:这些细菌的生物化学特性与地球生物几乎天差地别,不大可能出现这种情况。况且,封闭实验室也能让那些坚持己见的人放宽心。
Forward contamination is more troubling. Some echo terrestrial worries about conservation, arguing that humans have a moral obligation not to damage other ecosystems. Others fret about the scientific implications. Life on Mars, whether extant or extinct, could be one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology. Contamination risks disrupting understanding of that scientific bounty.
正向污染则麻烦得多。有些人的想法和地球上人们对环境保护的担忧不谋而合,认为人类有道德义务不去破坏其他生态系统。还有些人则担心科学上的影响。火星上的生命,无论是当今存在还是已经消亡,都将是生物学史上最重大的发现。一旦受到污染,人类对其的认识过程可能会受到影响。
Countries are already required, by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, to worry about these risks. But this treaty is light on specifics, leaving individual space agencies to come up with their own rules. This is better than nothing. But as more countries head for Mars, the case grows for a formal, global approach.
1967年签署的《外层空间条约》要求各个国家(在实施太空探索时)必须考虑到这些风险。但该条约鲜有涉及具体要求,因此各国航天机构纷纷制定自己的规则。(尽管这些规则五花八门),但有总比没有好。然而,随着越来越多的国家想要探索火星,制定一个全球统一的正式规章显得十分重要。
Plenty of ideas are worth discussing. Some advocate risk-management, in which the greatest care is taken when exploring those parts of Mars most likely to contain life, though lower standards apply in harsher regions. “Reversible exploration” holds that, if life is discovered, humanity should retrieve the probes that already dot the Martian surface, along with their microbial passengers. And should private individuals be required to follow the same rules as nation-states?
关于这一点,有很多想法值得探讨。有人提倡“风险管理说”,即在探索火星上最有可能包含生命的区域时,要格外小心,在环境更恶劣(但无生命迹象)的地区反而可以采用更低的标准。而“可逆探索说”则认为,一旦发现生命迹象,人类就应收回已经遍布火星表面的探测器,以及他们携带的微生物。此外,个人是否应该遵守与民族国家相同的规则?
International co-operation is not a popular idea just now. Never mind: it should be tried anyway. Nationalism and protectionism can wane as well as wax, and alien-hunting is the work of decades. Counter-measures need not be expensive—experience suggests they add 10% or less to the cost of a probe. And it is hard to think of a more intrinsically global problem than ensuring that one planet’s life forms do not contaminate another’s.
当前,国际合作并不被广泛接受。不过没关系,这值得一试。民族主义和保护主义兴盛有时,衰退亦有时,而寻找外星生物并非一朝一夕的事。应对措施并不需要太多的资金投入——经验表明,每个探测器的成本最多也就增加10%。而且,很难想象有什么问题比确保一个星球的生命形态不受另一个星球污染更具全球性。
翻译组:
Jessie, 女 ,旅游业转行口译,喜欢教书与读书
Cecilia,女,一口一笔,无可救药的乐观主义者
Desmond,男,即将读研,悬疑剧、恐怖片和三国杀爱好者
校对组:
Neil, 男,外贸民工,经济学人铁粉
Hannah,女,英语教书匠,经济学人粉丝
Rex,男,口译硕士,集书狂魔,经学钢粉
Sylvia,女,爱健身的小翻译,经济学人粉儿
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本次感想
VeRy,男,电气民工,经济学人资浅爱好者
曾经想象过自己是如何死亡,如果可以选择的话。那时候觉得最酷的大概有以下几种:为爱而死,可能是和别人决斗,或者她身患重病,只能用我的生命作为代价来换回她的;为义而亡,为了心中的大义,为了人类的自由和幸福,慷慨就义;为梦而终,追随马斯克去往单程的火星之旅。
随着年纪的增大,渐渐觉得第一种想法比较幼稚了,因为人活着大概不仅仅是为了自己而活,因为你身上有着你必须去承担的责任,孝敬父母,养育子女,陪伴妻子。如果只是任性地为了爱情而抛下眼前的一切,只能说是一种逃避责任的懦夫行径。
随着眼界的开阔,慢慢感觉到了自己可能没有这种为了人类大义而英勇牺牲的资格,因为我可能只是平凡人,有着平凡的价值,大概最重要的价值就是顾好自己的小家了,人类大概率是不需要我来就义的,至少排队的人群里我不在前列。
所以我能够有机会实现的死法可能就剩下追随马斯克了,当然他是一个争议很大的人物,我之前也谈过对他的看法,所以不再赘述了,只是觉得,如果他能抛下一切踏上去往火星的单程之旅,我有什么理由对这个男人不报以最大的敬意呢?而最大的敬意大概就是和他一同前往了。至少我觉得这趟旅程和欧洲人踏足美利坚的国土有着天壤之别,虽然表面看来都是为了理想,但是他们只是为了自己或者自己的后代能有更好的生活,而我们,我们则是为了全人类能有更好的生活,或者在将来地球不再适合做我们的家园时有个备选方案,大概没有比这更加伟大的事业了吧。从这个角度去思考当下的各国纷争,你死我活的抢夺利益,真是渺小且可悲。
这个当然不会只是一个心中念想,我也正在不断提高自己,努力做一名训练有素的工程师,或者是一名合格的新家园拓荒者,我看过报名的条件,这就是我努力的方向,我前行的动力,这就是我的中国梦,世界梦。
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