見識一下NASA建造的最富雄心的宇宙飛船

In the August issue of Smithsonian's Air& Space magazine, Tom Vanderbilt tests out NASA's new Orion spaceship, which will go deeper into space than anyspaceship has before.

在史密森學會8月份的《航天與航空》雜誌中，湯姆·範德比爾特測試了NASA最新的獵戶座宇宙飛船，該飛船將比以往任何飛船都要深入太空中去。

Vanderbilt toured a "low-fidelitymockup" of Orion at Lockheed Martin's Exploration Development Laboratoryin Houston, and he describes the spaceship as resembling a Star WarsStormtrooper's helmet.

湯姆·範德比爾在位於休斯敦的洛克希德馬丁公司的探索研究實驗室裏測試了該飛船的“低保真度模型”，他形容這架飛船很像《星球大戰》裏突擊隊員的頭盔。

Despite massive NASA budget cuts recently,NASA gave the lab $6.1 billion in 2006 for Orion's construction. When theprogram was canceled, Lockheed Martin created a contact, which has beenextended to 2020, to build capsules for three missions. Orion, Vanderbiltwrites, is "NASA's most ambitious crewed vehicle ever" and will"carry the human space program for the next 30 years." NASA hopesOrion will be able to complete everything from lunar exploration to Marsmissions.

儘管最近幾年NASA的預算得到了大量的削減，但是在2006年的時候給該實驗室撥款61億美元用以研發獵戶座飛船。當該計劃被取消時，洛克希德馬丁公司又與NASA取得聯繫，於是該計劃被延期到2020年，任務是建造太空艙以完成三項任務。範德比爾認爲獵戶座飛船是NASA最富雄心的飛船，而且將在未來30年內帶領人類進行太空探索。NASA希望獵戶座飛船能夠完成從探月到火星探險等任務。

Orion will eventually reach speeds of 20,000 mph, Vanderbiltreports, and will be able to leave low Earth orbit, where the InternationalSpace Station is located. According to NASA's website, Orion's first test flight willoccur by the end of the year, with Orion atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket. Orion'sfirst exploration mission, which will be the first to combine Orion with NASA'snew SpaceLaunch System, is scheduled for 2017.

獵戶座的最終時速將達到2萬英里，而且有能力離開低地球軌道，而國際空間站正位於該軌道上。根據NASA網站上的說法，獵戶座的首次測試飛行將於年底前完成，運載火箭將是三角洲四號運載火箭。根據計劃，獵戶座將於2017年進行首次太空探險，到時獵戶座飛船將首次與NASA的新空間發射系統相結合。