VOA慢速英语2011--Nigeria Launches First African-Built Sat

Technology Report - Nigeria Launches First African-Built Satellite

科技报道 - 尼日利亚发射首颗非洲自行研制卫星

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

Nigeria has launched the first satellite designed and built by Africans. The NigeriaSat-X is one of two Earth observation satellites that the country recently launched. These are Nigeria's third and fourth satellites.

尼日利亚发射了首颗由非洲人设计和制造的卫星。NigeriaSat-X卫星是该国最近发生的两颗对地观测卫星中的一颗。这也是尼日利亚的第三颗和第四颗卫星。

The NigeriaSat-X is the result of a training agreement between the National Space Research and Development Agency and a company called Surrey Satellite Technology. Twenty-six Nigerian engineers attended a training program over an eighteen-month period at the satellite developer’s offices in the United Kingdom.

这颗NigeriaSat-X卫星是尼日利亚国家空间研究与开发总署和萨里卫星技术公司之间的培训协议的产物。26名尼日利亚工程师参加了这家英国卫星开发商为期18个月的培训课程。

Steve Young is head of business development for the company. He says the skills that the young Nigerian scientists have learned should help not only their country's space program.

史蒂夫·杨格（Steve Young）是这家公司的业务开发主管。他表示，这些年轻的尼日利亚科学家学到的技术不仅仅能帮助该国的太空计划。

STEVE YOUNG: “You are now beginning to train a corps 1 of very experienced engineers, high-technology technicians, and people who are going to benefit the wider economy. That also is a very good effect that the Nigerians get in investing in high-tech 2 programs. They've got to develop their economy, and that's one of the ways they do that is by doing this.”

杨格：“尼日利亚已经开始培训一支经验丰富的工程师，高科技技术人员，以及有利于整体经济的队伍。这也是尼日利亚投资高科技产生的良好效应。他们开始发展经济，而这也是发展经济的途径之一。”

The cameras on the satellites can show details of objects as small as two and a half meters across. These images will be used to map territory and help with city planning. The pictures can also provide valuable information about crop and land conditions, and assist in disaster relief efforts.

该卫星上携带的相机可以提供小到2.5米范围内的物体细节。这些图片将用于勘测地貌和协助城市规划，还能提供关于农作物和土地状况的有价值信息，并协助救灾工作。

Steve Young says this kind of information is often lacking in developing countries.

杨格表示，发展中国家通常缺乏这类信息。

STEVE YOUNG: “We often take it for granted in industrialized nations that we have all this information, we have accurate maps, we have land registries, we have planning systems, we have precision agriculture systems. We have all this stuff in place, but for a lot of countries, they don't.”

杨格：“在工业化国家我们通常把拥有这类信息当作理所当然，我们有精确的地图、土地登记、规划系统、精准农业系统。我们拥有这一切，但很多国家没有这些。”

In another technology development, Ghana has become the latest African country to invest in a biometric voter registration 3 system. Such systems are used to confirm the identity of voters when they register to vote. These systems commonly use measures like fingerprints 4 or face recognition.

另一项科技发展中，加纳成为了最新的投资于生物选民登记系统的非洲国家。该系统在选民登记投票时用于确认选民身份，通常采用指纹识别或面部识别等措施。

Ghanaian election officials say the forty-five-million-dollar system should be in operation in time for next’s year’s presidential election.

加纳选举官员表示，这个价值4500万的系统将在下次总统选举时投入使用。

Christopher Fomunyoh is West and Central Africa director for the Washington-based National Democratic Institute. He says a trustworthy voter list is one way to protect elections.

Christopher Fomunyoh是总部设在华盛顿的国家民主研究所西非和中非地区负责人。他表示，一个值得信任的选民名单是保障选举的途径之一。

Christopher Fomunyoh: "There's a sense that once you get the voter rolls in order, once the voter rolls reflect the electorate 5 or the population that is of voting age in the appropriate constituencies, then the management of the rest of the election process is already fraud-proof in a way.”

Christopher Fomunyoh：“有这样一种观念，一旦你得到选民的有序名单。一旦选民名单体现出适当选区的选民和达到投票年龄的人群。那么选举过程的其他管理工作就是用一种方式来防欺诈。”

But Mr. Fomunyoh says a biometric system is only one of many tools needed to win the trust of voters. Election disputes have led to deadly violence in several African countries in the past year, including Ivory Coast, Guinea and Nigeria.

但Fomunyoh先生说，生物识别系统只是获得选民信任的众多工具之一。过去的一年中，选举争议在数个非洲国家导致了致命暴力事件，包括象牙象牙海岸，几内亚和尼日利亚。

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. I'm Christopher Cruise.

Contributing: Drew Hinshaw