電話打給太空人

The phone to my home office – in a rural village some 30 miles north of London – is connected to the outside world by a copper cable. The line swings loosely in the breeze between the guttering of our house and a telephone pole in the street.

我的家庭辦公室坐落于倫敦向北約30英里的農(nóng)村。在那里，與外界的聯(lián)系就靠一根銅電纜。電纜從我家屋檐下松松地牽到街上的電線桿，在微風(fēng)中晃晃悠悠。

It was probably installed around the time the house was built, in the mid-1930s. This pre-war technology has lasted 80 years but is about to be put to its toughest test yet.

這還是上世紀(jì)30年代中期，建這幢房子時安裝的。這二戰(zhàn)前的科技已經(jīng)維持了80年之久，即將迎來最嚴(yán)峻的考驗(yàn)。

“Please can you count up from one to 10?” asks Beth, the polite engineer in NASA’s Audio Control Room in Houston. I do as I am asked – speaking as clearly as I ever have, and quite possibly parodying the clipped pronunciation of a 1950s BBC announcer.

“請您從1數(shù)到10好嗎。”NASA休斯頓音頻控制室里，彬彬有禮的工程師Beth問道。我照做——發(fā)音前所未有地清楚，可能刻意模仿五十年代BBC播音員那般清晰地吐詞。

A lot is resting on this.

這一步關(guān)系重大。

“Thank you,” she says. “I can confirm your phone line is now certified for space.”

“謝謝，”她說，“我確認(rèn)你的電話線路可以進(jìn)行太空通話。”

It has taken many months to arrange an interview with astronauts on the International Space Station and, with this final hurdle cleared, I will shortly be talking to people orbiting the Earth.

安排一次對國際空間站宇航員的采訪歷時好幾個月，此刻最后的障礙也清除了，我馬上就能和在地球軌道上的宇航員通話了。

On the screen NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko float into view. The two ISS crewmembers are four months into their year-long mission, aimed at investigating the effects of long-duration spaceflight. They look relaxed as they bob up and down between the white walls of the Japanese Kibo module.

屏幕上，NASA宇航員Scott Kelly和俄國宇航員Mikhail Kornienko飄進(jìn)視野。這兩位國際空間站工作人員需要完成為期一年的任務(wù)，目標(biāo)是調(diào)查長時間宇宙飛行的影響，目前已完成了四個月。在日本“希望”試驗(yàn)倉里，他們輕飄飄地在白色的墻體間上下移動，看起來很是輕松。

“Please stand by for a voice check from BBC.”

請準(zhǔn)備進(jìn)行BBC聲音檢測。

“Station, this is Richard Hollingham for BBC, how do you hear me?”

空間站，我是BBC的Richard Hollingham，聽得清嗎?

“I hear you loud and clear, welcome aboard the International Space Station!”

很清楚，歡迎來到國際空間站!

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