CNN News: 馬斯克將小說《銀河帝國》送上了獵鷹號

SpaceX is about to make the ground seriously crumble. The new rocket, the Falcon Heavy, is about to launch for the first time and this thing is big. It’s lifting from the historic Kennedy Center launch pad 39A, which is where Apollo 11 launched humans to the moon, and once again, the pad will be the site of space flight history.

太空探索技術公司(SpaceX)即將會讓大地為之顫抖。新火箭“獵鷹號”將首次發射，這是一件大事。它從歷史上著名的肯尼迪中心39A發射臺升空，那里是阿波羅11號將人類送入月球的地方，再一次，發射臺將成為太空飛行歷史的地點。

Once Falcon Heavy has lift off, SpaceX says it will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two.

一旦“獵鷹重型”升空，SpaceX公司表示，這將是世界上最強大的作戰火箭，其威力將是目前的兩倍。

The rocket is powered by 27 engines and SpaceX says when all engines are at full throttle, the rocket has 5 million pounds of thrust, which is the equivalent of 18 747s. The going cost for a launch, according to the company, $90 million. But that’s just a fraction of what a launch would cost with the SLS, the heavy lift rocket that the government has been working on for years.

火箭由27個引擎提供動力。SpaceX稱，當所有引擎都處于全速運轉時，火箭的推力為500萬磅，相當于18747s。據該公司稱，目前的發射成本為9000萬美元。但這只是政府多年來一直致力于的重型運載火箭發射成本的一小部分。

Now, the Falcon Heavy is basically three of the company’s Falcon IX rockets, which they’ve been launching since 2010, strapped together.

現在，“獵鷹重型”基本上是該公司的“獵鷹9號”(Falcon IX)火箭中的三枚，他們自2010年以來就一直把它們一起發射。

Originally, the company had thought that putting together three of these tried and true rockets would be relatively easy rocket science, but it turns out it was much more complicated than Elon Musk and his team had anticipated, and the launch has been delayed for several years. And even though the rocket is expected to finally take flight, Musk himself acknowledges that this first test launch has a high likelihood of failure.

：最初，該公司認為，將三枚試驗過的、真正的火箭組裝在一起，相對來說是一項簡單的火箭科學，但事實證明，這比埃隆•馬斯克(Elon Musk)和他的團隊所預期的要復雜得多，而且發射被推遲了好幾年。盡管火箭預計將最終升空，但馬斯克本人也承認，第一次試飛失敗的可能性很大。

So, when you’re launching the rocket that everybody has been waiting years for and has a good shot of just blowing up -- well, if you’re Musk, master of PR, you go big and you launch your own car. Yet, the rocket’s payload will be Musk’s own cherry red Tesla roadster and it will be playing David Bowie’s "Space Oddity" on repeat.

所以，你發射火箭的時刻每個人都已經等了好幾年了，并且有一個很好的爆炸的機會——嗯，如果你是馬斯克，公關大師，你就會抓住機會。然而，火箭的有效載荷將是紅色的特斯拉跑車，它將在重復播放大衛·鮑伊的“太空怪”。

The intended destination: Mars orbit, that is if it doesn’t blow up on ascent. And while sending a Tesla to space might be a silly PR stunt, the launch is anything but. The rocket was designed from the start to ferry people to the moon and to Mars. A successful launch would put SpaceX, a giant lip forward, towards getting to deep space. Oh, and did I mention that SpaceX is hoping to land all three first stage boosters? Yes, that’s also happening.

如果火箭發射順利，則目標是:火星軌道。雖然把特斯拉送到太空可能是一種愚蠢的公關噱頭，但這次發射絕非易事。這枚火箭從一開始就被設計用來將人們運送到月球和火星。如果發射成功，太空探索技術公司(SpaceX)——一個巨大的“跨越”——將朝著進入太空的方向前進。哦，我有沒有提到SpaceX公司希望把所有三個一級推進器都著陸?是的,這一切正在發生。