旅游太空飞船试飞实验成功
Virgin Galactic's tourism spaceship climbed more than 50 miles high above California's Mojave Desert on Thursday, reaching for the first time what the company considers the boundary of space.
周四，维珍银河公司的旅游宇宙飞船在加州莫哈韦沙漠(Mojave Desert)上空飞行了50多英里，首次到达了该公司认为的太空边界。
The rocket ship hit an altitude of 51 miles (82 kilometers) before beginning its gliding descent, said mission official Enrico Palermo.
此次任务的长官恩瑞科·巴勒莫说，这艘火箭船在开始滑翔下降之前，曾在达到了51英里(82公里)的高度。
Thursday's supersonic flight takes Virgin Galactic closer to turning the long-delayed dream of commercial space tourism into reality.
周四的超音速飞行使维珍银河更接近了将拖延已久的商业太空旅行梦想变成现实。
The company aims to take paying customers on the six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet.
该公司的目标是让付费客户乘坐这款六人火箭，这款火箭大约有一架商务机那么大。
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson has said he wants to be one of the first on board.
维珍银河创始人理查德·布兰森表示，他希望到时候成为首批登机的人。
Branson greeted the two pilots after the test, declaring "Space is Virgin territory!"
布兰森在测试结束后向两位飞行员打招呼，宣称“太空如今是维珍的领地!”
Virgin Galactic considers 50 miles (80 kilometers) the boundary of space because that is the distance used by the U.S. Air Force and other U.S. agencies.
维珍银河公司把50英里(80公里)的高空作为太空边界，因为这是美国空军和其他美国机构使用的距离。
That's different from a long-held view that the boundary is at 62 miles (100 kilometers).
这与人们长期以来认为的边界是62英里(100公里)的观点不同。
Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides noted that recent research favors the lower altitude.
维珍银河首席执行官乔治·怀特赛兹指出，最近的研究倾向于采用更低的高度。
Whitesides said a review of the flight's data will last into the new year, and there will be more test flights, some with company employees as passengers.
怀特赛兹说，对航班数据的审查将持续到明年，还将有更多的试飞，其中一些试飞将由公司员工担任乘客。
He wouldn't estimate when commercial passenger trips might begin.
他还不能估计商业旅客旅行可能何时开始。
"This is a huge step forward and once we look at the data we'll see what that pathway is," he said.
他说:“这是向前迈出的一大步，一旦我们看到数据，我们能看到前方的道路。”
At the start of the test flight, a special jet carrying the Virgin Space Ship Unity flew to an altitude near 43,000 feet (13,100 meters) before releasing the craft.
在试飞开始时，一架载有“联合号”宇宙飞船的特殊喷气机在释放飞船前飞行了近43000英尺(13100米)。
The spaceship ignited its rocket engine and it quickly hurtled upward and out of sight of viewers on the ground.
宇宙飞船点燃了火箭引擎，它迅速向上冲去，从地面上的观众的视线中消失了。
The spaceship reached Mach 2.9, nearly three times the speed of sound.
飞船速度达到2.9马赫，几乎是音速的三倍。
The two test pilots — Mark "Forger" Stucky and former NASA astronaut Rick "CJ" Sturckow — will be awarded commercial astronaut wings, said Federal Aviation Administration official Bailey Edwards.
美国联邦航空管理局官员贝利·爱德华兹说，两名试飞员——马克·斯达基和前美国宇航局宇航员里克·斯特奇——将被授予商业飞行勋章。
"It was a great flight and I can't wait to do it again," said Sturckow, who flew on the space shuttle four times.
“这是一次伟大的飞行，我迫不及待地想再来一次，”曾四次乘坐航天飞机的斯特科夫说。
Virgin Galactic's development of its spaceship took far longer than expected and endured a setback when the first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot.
维珍银河(Virgin Galactic)开发这艘宇宙飞船所用的时间远远长于预期，并在2014年的一次试飞中遭遇了挫折，当时第一艘实验飞船解体，导致副驾驶丧生。
"People have literally put their lives on the line to get us here," Branson said.
布兰森说:“他们真的是冒着生命危险把我们带到这里。”
"This day is much for them as it is for all of us."
“今天这一天对于我们和他们来说都同意重要。”
More than 600 people have committed up to $250,000 for rides that include several minutes of weightlessness and a view of the Earth far below.
超过600人已经预付了高达25万美元的乘坐费用，其中包括几分钟的失重体验和脚下地球的景观。
The spaceship will also be used for research: NASA had science experiment on the test flight.这艘宇宙飞船还将用于研究:美国国家航空航天局(NASA)在试飞中进行了科学实验。
The endeavor began in 2004 when Branson announced the founding of Virgin Galactic in the heady days after the flights of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed manned spacecraft that made three flights into space.
这一努力始于2004年，当时布兰森宣布成立维珍银河，当时正值“宇宙飞船一号”升空后的激动人心的日子。
Funded by the late billionaire Paul G. Allen and created by maverick aerospace designer Burt Rutan, SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
由已故亿万富翁保罗· 吉·艾伦出资、特立独行的航空设计师伯特·鲁坦创作的太空船一号获得了1000万美元的安萨里X大奖。
The prize was created to kick-start private development of rocket ships that would make spaceflight available to the public.
该奖项的设立是为了启动私人开发火箭飞船，使公众能够进行太空飞行。
When Branson licensed the SpaceShipOne technology, he envisioned a fleet carrying paying passengers by 2007, launching them from a facility in southern New Mexico called Spaceport America.
布兰森在批准“太空船一号”技术时，设想在2007年之前建成一支搭载付费乘客的船队，从新墨西哥州南部名为“美国航天港”的设施发射载人飞船。
But there were significant setbacks.
不过计划遇到了很大的延误。
Three technicians were killed in 2007 by an explosion while testing a propellant system at Scaled Composites LLC, which built SpaceShipOne and was building the first SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic.
2007年，在缩尺复合材料公司测试推进剂系统时发生爆炸，导致三名技术人员丧生。这家公司制造了太空船一号，并为维珍银河公司(Virgin Galactic)制造了第一艘太空船二号。
Then, in 2014, SpaceShipTwo broke apart during a test flight by Scaled Composites when the co-pilot prematurely unlocked its unique "feathering" braking system and it began to deploy.
然后，在2014年，缩尺复合材料公司进行的一次试飞中，副驾驶过早地打开了其独特的“羽化”制动系统，导致太空船二号解体。
The co-pilot was killed but the injured pilot managed to survive a fall from high altitude with a parachute.
副驾驶遇难，但受伤的飞行员成功设法从高空中跳伞逃生。
During descent, the craft's twin tails are designed to rotate upward to slow it down, then return to a normal flying configuration before the craft glides to a landing on a runway.
在下降过程中，飞机的双尾翼被设计成向上旋转以减慢速度，然后在飞机滑到跑道上着陆前恢复正常飞行状态。
New versions of SpaceShipTwo are built by a Virgin Galactic sister company and flight testing is now in-house. Its previous test flight reached 32 miles (52 kilometers).
新版本的太空船二号是由维珍银河的姊妹公司制造的，飞行测试现在是内部进行的。此前的试飞高度达到了32英里(52公里)。
Branson isn't alone in the space tourism business: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is planning to take space tourists on trips, using the more traditional method of a capsule atop a rocket that blasts off from a launch pad.
布兰森并不是唯一一个从事太空旅游的公司:杰夫·贝佐斯的蓝色起源公司正计划让太空游客进行太空旅行，使用的是更传统的方法，即把太空舱放在火箭顶上，从发射台发射升空。
SpaceX's Elon Musk recently announced plans to take a wealthy Japanese entrepreneur and his friends on a trip around the moon.
X空间公司的埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)最近宣布，计划带一位富有的日本企业家和他的朋友进行绕月旅行。
对于正在研发实验中的太空旅行飞船，朋友们有什么看法呢？欢迎给amber留言哦！
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