馬斯克一手造夢想一手造時勢
To follow Elon Musk’s Twitter feed on Tuesday as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket blasted off from its launch pad was to enter into the zany, geeky, mettlesome, and inspirational world of the South African-born tech entrepreneur.
All through the day SpaceX’s founder kept his 19m followers updated on the flight profile of the company’s huge rocket and the delays to the countdown caused by excessive high-altitude winds.
這位SpaceX的創始人一整天都在向他的1900萬粉絲實時播報該公司這枚巨型火箭的發射情況，以及因高空風速過大導致的發射倒計時延遲。Then, soon after the 27-engine rocket roared into space, he tweeted near-surreal footage of one of his red Tesla Roadster cars with a dummy astronaut strapped onboard orbiting the Earth. This brazen cross-promotion for the car company Mr Musk also founded was variously interpreted as one of the most expensive, or cheapest, mass advertising campaigns in history.
然後，在這枚搭載27臺引擎的火箭轟鳴着進入太空後不久，他在Twitter上發佈了一段超現實的畫面：他的一輛紅色特斯拉跑車Roadster繞着地球飛行，車裏面坐着一具身穿宇航服的假人。此番對同樣由馬斯克創立的汽車公司的赤裸裸的交叉促銷，被評價爲歷史上最昂貴、或最省的大型廣告活動之一。
“We’re doing OK for a bunch of monkeys. Humanity rocks!” Mr Musk tweeted.
“猴子出身的我們做得不錯。人類棒極了！”馬斯克發了一條這樣的帖子。Adopting a more restrained tone in response to President Donald Trump, who was quick to send a congratulatory tweet, Mr Musk replied: “Thank you on behalf of SpaceX. An exciting future lies ahead!”
美國總統唐納德·特朗普(Donald Trump)很快便發推文表示祝賀，馬斯克回覆特朗普時使用了更爲節制的語氣：“代表SpaceX感謝您。一個令人興奮的未來就在眼前!”Behind all the quirky bravado stands a stunning technological achievement.
所有這些奇特的造勢背後是一項驚人的科技成就。The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket to be launched since the Saturn V programme took astronauts to the Moon. The dramatic and safe return of two of the Falcon Heavy’s three boosters was also a noteworthy feat, promising to cut the cost of future launches.
獵鷹重型火箭是自“土星5號”(Saturn V)將宇航員送上月球以來發射的推力最強大的火箭。安全回收獵鷹重型火箭三枚助推器中的兩枚，也是一項值得關注的成就，這意味着未來發射成本有望降低。The success opens the way for a manned mission around the Moon by two paying astronauts, although SpaceX appears to be tiptoeing away from its original timetable that this would take place before the end of the year. It also marks a significant step towards Mr Musk’s ultimate ambition: to land on Mars. That mission, though, will depend on the success of SpaceX’s next rocket design, known with frat-boy humour as the BFR (or Big F***ing Rocket), due to be launched in the mid-2020s.
此次成功爲下一步將兩名旅客送上月球的載人任務開闢了道路，儘管SpaceX似乎正在偏離原定於今年底之前實現這一目標的時間表。這也標誌着向馬斯克的終極目標——登陸火星邁出了重要一步。不過，這一任務將取決於SpaceX被戲稱爲BFR(Big Fucking Rocket)的下一款火箭的成功。The US space establishment was initially wary of tech billionaires such as Mr Musk and the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, when they first declared their ambitions to run their own private space programmes. But Nasa quickly came to admire the highly innovative and hard-charging attitude that these entrepreneurs have brought to the business. Such has been Nasa’s faith in Mr Musk that it has even granted SpaceX a licence to operate from the hallowed ground of Launchpad 39A, the site from which Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins blasted off to the Moon in 1969.
當馬斯克、亞馬遜(Amazon)創始人傑夫·貝索斯(Jeff Bezos)等科技億萬富翁首次宣佈開展私人太空項目的雄心時，美國太空當局起初對他們心存警惕。但美國國家航空航天局(NASA)很快就開始稱讚這些企業家爲太空事業帶來的高度創新和進取心十足的精神。NASA對馬斯克如此有信心，甚至給予SpaceX許可證，允許其使用具有歷史意義的肯尼迪航天中心39A發射臺(Launchpad 39A)，即尼爾·阿姆斯特朗(Neil Armstrong)、巴茲·奧爾德林(Buzz Aldrin)和邁克爾·科林斯(Michael Collins) 1969年登月時的發射臺。So many people have now bought into Mr Musk’s extraordinary vision that it might be sensible to apply a discount to his accomplishments. Certainly, the $57bn stock market value of Tesla Motors, his lossmaking car company that delivered just over 100,000 vehicles last year, would appear to defy financial gravity. And the failed deployment of a spy satellite following its launch on a Falcon 9 rocket on January 7 also highlighted the periodic fallibility of the SpaceX programme, although the company has said its rocket functioned perfectly.
現在有這麼多的人爲馬斯克的非凡願景所折服，也許給他的成就打點折扣是理智的。當然，馬斯克旗下去年僅交付10多萬輛汽車且處於虧損中的特斯拉(Tesla Motors) 570億美元的市值，似乎是有違金融規律。1月7日，獵鷹9號火箭搭載的一顆間諜衛星部署失敗也凸顯出SpaceX項目不時會出現問題，儘管該公司稱其火箭表現完美。It used to be said of Steve Jobs that Apple’s monomaniacal founder conjured up his own “reality distortion field”, in whose thrall people suspended their disbelief. Much the same can be said of Mr Musk.
過去人們常說蘋果公司有些偏執狂的創始人史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)創造了自己的“現實扭力場”(reality distortion field)，陷身其中的人會停止質疑。同樣的說法也可適用於馬斯克。But whatever the occasional distortions, the underlying reality behind both entrepreneurs’ achievements is impressive and indisputable.
但不管間或造成了什麼扭曲，兩位企業家成就背後的深層現實是令人印象深刻和無可爭議的。
