理查德·布蘭森進入太空
Jackie Wattles, Fernando Alfonso III and Mike Hayes, July 11, 2021
Edited and Translated by Ray & Sally
Traveling to space must be "more accessible to all," Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson said during a news conference following his successful flight aboard Galactic's VSS Unity earlier today.
維珍銀河公司的創始人理查德·布蘭森在今天早些時候乘坐銀河公司的VSS Unity號成功飛行后的新聞發布會上說，到太空旅行必須是“所有人都更容易做到的”。
"We're here to make space more accessible to all. We want to turn the next generation of dreamers into the astronauts of today and tomorrow. We've all us on this stage have had the most extraordinary experience, and we'd love it if a number of you can have it, too," he said. "If you ever had a dream, now is the time to make it come true. I'd like to end by saying welcome to the dawn of a new space age."
“我們今天來這里是為了讓所有人都可以進入太空。我們要把下一代的夢想家變成今天和明天的宇航員。他說：“在這個舞臺上，我們都有過最不尋常的經歷，如果你們中的一些人也能有這樣的經歷，我們會非常高興。”如果你曾經有過夢想，現在是實現夢想的時候了。最后，我想說：“歡迎進入新太空時代的黎明。”
Richard Branson became the first person to ride into space aboard a rocket he helped fund. The supersonic space plane developed by his company, Virgin Galactic, roared into the sky over New Mexico early Sunday, carrying Branson and three fellow crewmembers.
理查德布蘭森成為第一個乘坐他資助的火箭進入太空的人。他的公司維珍銀河公司研制的超音速太空飛機星期天早上在新墨西哥州上空呼嘯而過，機上搭載著布蘭森和三名同事。
Branson -— along with Virgin Galactic employees Beth Moses, Colin Bennett, and Sirisha Bandla and pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci — boarded the SpaceShipTwo, a winged plane with a single rocket motor that the company has spent nearly two decades developing, before the crack of dawn. Attached beneath its massive, twin-fuselaged mothership, dubbed WhiteKnightTwo, the vehicle took to the skies at 8:30 am MT and climbed to about 50,000 feet in the air.
黎明前，布蘭森和維珍銀河公司的員工貝絲·摩西、科林·貝內特、西莉莎·班德拉以及飛行員戴夫·麥凱和邁克爾·馬蘇奇一起登上了太空船二號，這是一架有翼飛機，搭載了該公司花了近20年時間研制的單火箭發動機。這艘被稱為“白騎士二號”的巨型雙機身母艦，于上午8:30升空，升空高度約50000英尺。
Branson's flight — which came just nine days before Amazon bilionaire Jeff Bezos is slated to rocket into suborbital space aboard his own company's spacecraft — is a landmark moment for the commercial space industry. The up-and-coming sector has for years been seeking to make suborbital space tourism (a relatively simple straight-up-and-down flight, as opposed to orbiting the Earth for longer periods) a viable business with the aim of allowing thousands of people to experience the adrenaline rush and sweeping views of our home planet that such flights can offer.
布蘭森的這次飛行是商業航天業的一個里程碑式的時刻，距離亞馬遜億萬富翁杰夫·貝佐斯計劃乘坐自己公司的飛船進入亞軌道空間只有9天時間。新興行業多年來一直在尋求實現亞軌道太空旅游（一種相對簡單的直線上下飛行，與繞地球運行更長時間不同），這是一項可行的業務，目的是讓成千上萬的人體驗這種飛行所能提供的令人興奮的、對我們地球家園一覽無余的景象。
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