VOA常速英语2015--宇航员为太空旅行做水下实验

Astronauts Train Underwater for Deep Space Missions 宇航员为太空旅行做水下实验

Manned deep space missions are still a long way off, but space agencies are already testing procedures, equipment and human stamina 1 for operations in extreme environment conditions.  Small groups of astronauts take turns in spending days in an underwater lab, off Florida’s southern coast, simulating future missions to some remote world.  

Looking ahead to planned missions to the moon, an asteroid 2 and Mars, Western space agencies send their astronauts to this underwater lab, 20 meters below the surface, off the coast of Key Largo 3, Florida, to test procedures, equipment and how to tolerate living with each other in a confined space.

西方国家的太空机构希望能进行月球旅行，就派宇航员到佛罗里达州基拉戈这个深20米的水下实验室，测试程序、装备以及如何在密封空间里与其他宇航员共同生活。

“Obviously, you need people that are willing to adjust, that are easygoing, that are ready to lead but also follow, and so you need a good balance of people in order to run a place like this, to run a mission smoothly," said Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano.

“显然需要那些愿意调整、性格随和的人，愿意起带头作用也愿意追随他人的人，所以要在这样的地方顺利完成任务，就需要宇航员有着良好的平衡能力。”

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, NASA astronauts Serena Aunon and David Coan, and Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai are the 20th crew of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, a program known as NEEMO.

欧洲宇航局航天员卢卡·帕尔米塔诺、美国航天局的赛伦纳·奥农和戴维·科恩和日本宇航员金井宣茂是美国航天局极端环境任务行动(NEEMO)项目的第20批宇航员。

A large surface support crew, plus two experienced divers 4 living with them in the lab, help the astronauts train for different environments.

一个大台面支撑着宇航员和两名有经验的潜水员生活在这个实验室，帮助宇航员们在不同的环境下进行培训。

“Outside, here, in the ocean, we can use our buoyancy control devices to create very specific conditions where we can be fully 5 microgravity or in reduced gravity and simulate being on the surface of a planet or on an asteroid or on a moon," said Parmitano.

“在台面外面的海洋中，我们使用浮力补偿调节装置来制造一些特定条件，比如微重力或减重力条件，来模拟在行星、小行星或月球表面的情景。”

Much of their time is devoted 6 to testing new procedures.

他们大部分时间是在测试新程序。

“We also implemented 7 an artificial time delay so that all our communications are artificially delayed to study what would happen if we are on the surface of Mars and we cannot have a direct answer instantaneousl," Parmitano said.

“我们还进行了人工时间延迟，将我们所有通讯都进行人工延迟，来研究我们在火星表面时遇到的情况，我们不能进行瞬间直接应答。

Sometimes the tools developed for space do not work well underwater.

有时开发的这些太空工具在水下不能很好地运作。

“We are trying to utilize 8 our developing tools for our real scientific research but sometimes it doesn't work well in the water, so in this case we have to use just normal tools which marine 9 scientists use for collecting samples," said Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai.

“我们努力利用这些开发工具来进行真实的科学研究，但有时这些工具在水下不能很好地运行，所以这种情况下我们必须只能使用海洋科学家用来收集样本的常规工具。”

The samples are collected for the owner of the underwater lab, Florida International University, whose scientists are going to use them in their own studies. 

这些样本是为水下实验室的所有者佛罗里达国际大学收集的，该大学的科学家将在自己的研究中使用这些样本。