富人們即將離開地球，向太空漫游
休斯敦——在這個特權(quán)人士不斷尋找可供沉迷的新體驗(yàn)，以便在社交媒體上展示的時代，太空確實(shí)依然是最后的邊界，是百分之一中的百分之一階層才負(fù)擔(dān)得起的奢侈品。乘坐理查德·布蘭森(Richard Branson)的維珍銀河(Virgin Galactic)太空船飛行一次，票價是25萬美元(約合160萬元人民幣)，據(jù)報道，布拉德·皮特(Brad Pitt)和凱蒂·佩里(Katy Perry)也在購票者之列，完全沒有被該公司2014年試飛失敗，導(dǎo)致一名飛行員遇難的事故嚇住。
Now a company called Axiom Space is giving those with piles of money and an adventuresome spirit something new to lust after: the prospect of an eight-day trip to space that is plush, if not entirely comfortable, and with a bit of the luster of NASA as well.
現(xiàn)在，一家名為公理太空(Axiom Space)的公司給那些擁有大筆金錢和冒險精神的人帶來了新渴望：公司有望開發(fā)一次為期8天的太空之旅，雖說并不完全舒適，但的確是一場豪華游，而且?guī)в幸稽c(diǎn)美國航空航天局(NASA)的光環(huán)。
Circumambulating his gray carpeted office on a recent Wednesday, Mike Suffredini — NASA veteran, Houston native, and the chief executive of Axiom Space — stopped in front of a cardboard compartment about as big as a telephone booth.
前不久的一個周三，出身NASA的休斯敦人、公理太空首席執(zhí)行官邁克·蘇弗雷迪尼(Mike Suffredini)在鋪著灰色地毯的辦公室里踱步，最后停在一個電話亭大小的硬紙板隔間前面。
“It’s no New York hotel room,” he said with a shrug, as if apologizing for its size.
“這不是紐約的酒店房間，”他聳聳肩，好像在為它的尺寸而道歉。
“It pretty much is, actually!” said Gabrielle Rein, Axiom’s marketing director.
“實(shí)際上它就是，真的!”公理的營銷總監(jiān)加布里埃爾·雷恩(Gabrielle Rein)說。
“It” was an early mock-up of a cabin for a commercial space station, among the first of its kind, that Axiom is building: a mash-up of boutique hotel, adult space camp and NASA-grade research facility designed to hover approximately 250 miles above Earth. Axiom hired Philippe Starck, the French designer who has lent panache to everything from high-end hotel rooms to mass-market baby monitors, to outfit the interior of its cabins. Starck lined the walls with a padded, quilted, cream-colored, suede-like fabric and hundreds of tiny LED lights that glow in varying hues depending on the time of day and where the space station is floating in relation to Earth.
“它”是公理正在建造的民用空間站中一個太空艙的早期模型，是同類型中的第一批，它是精品酒店、成人太空營地和NASA級研究設(shè)施的混合體，其目標(biāo)是要能懸停在地球上方約250英里的高度(合400公里)。公理聘請了法國設(shè)計師菲利普·斯塔克(Philippe Starck)來設(shè)計太空艙的內(nèi)部空間，他曾經(jīng)設(shè)計過各種東西，從高端酒店房間到大眾市場上的嬰兒監(jiān)視器。斯達(dá)克在墻上鋪了帶有軟墊、經(jīng)過絎縫的奶油色麂皮質(zhì)感織物，裝上了數(shù)百個微小的LED燈，根據(jù)一天中的時間以及漂浮的空間站相對于地球的位置，它們會發(fā)出不同色調(diào)的光。
“My vision is to create a comfortable egg, friendly, where walls are so soft and in harmony with the movements of the human body in zero gravity,” Starck wrote in an email, calling his intended effect “a first approach to infinity. The traveler should physically and mentally feel his or her action of floating in the universe.”
“我的設(shè)想是創(chuàng)造出一個舒適友好的蛋，它有著非常柔軟的墻壁，與人體在零重力下的運(yùn)動協(xié)調(diào)一致，”斯塔克在電子郵件中寫道，他說自己希望達(dá)到的效果是“第一次感受無限。旅行者可以全身心地體會到自己在宇宙中漂浮的動作。”
Brace for the rise of the cosmos-scenti.
太空漫游一族即將崛起。
At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Suffredini spent 10 years managing the International Space Station, the hulking, 20-year-old research facility in low Earth orbit. This gives him a certain edge over Branson and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who is overseeing Blue Origin. (The majority of Axiom’s 60 employees also hail from NASA.) At least Suffredini thinks so.
在美國國家航空航天局，蘇弗雷迪尼花了10年時間管理國際空間站，那是一個笨重的低地軌道研究設(shè)施，已經(jīng)使用了20年。因此，同布蘭森和掌管著藍(lán)色起源(Blue Origin)公司的亞馬遜創(chuàng)始人杰夫·貝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)相比，他擁有一定的優(yōu)勢。(公理的60名員工大部分也來自NASA。)至少蘇弗雷迪尼本人是這么想的。
“The guys who are doing Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are going to the edge of space — they’re not going into orbit,” he said. “What they’re doing is a cool experience. It gives you about 15 minutes of microgravity, and you see the curvature of the Earth, but you don’t get the same experience that you get from viewing the Earth from above, and spending time reflecting, contemplating.”
“藍(lán)色起源和維珍銀河的人只是去到太空邊緣——他們不會進(jìn)入軌道，”他說。“他們正在搞的是一種很酷的體驗(yàn)。它可以給你大約15分鐘的微重力，你可以看到地球的曲度，但是你無法得到與從太空觀看地球的體驗(yàn)，并且花時間去深思和凝視。”
And, naturally, posting to Instagram.
當(dāng)然，還有發(fā)Instagram帖子。
“There will be Wi-Fi,” Suffredini said. “Everybody will be online. They can make phone calls, sleep, look out the window.”
“里面會有Wi-Fi，” 蘇弗雷迪尼說。“所有人都可以上網(wǎng)。他們可以打電話、睡覺、看窗外。”
Maybe it will be so nice they’ll want to stay there.
也許那感覺會非常好，足以令他們流連忘返。
The Starck-designed station is scheduled to open in 2022, but Axiom says they can start sending curious travelers into orbit as early as 2020. They’ll just have to make do with the comparatively rugged accommodations of the International Space Station, which is working with Axiom and other commercial space station outfits.
斯塔克設(shè)計的空間站計劃于2022年開放，但公理表示，他們最早可以在2020年就把好奇的旅客送入軌道。這些旅客只需適應(yīng)國際空間站(它目前正與公理和其他商業(yè)空間站公司合作)相對比較簡陋的住宿環(huán)境。
Axiom’s station can house eight passengers, including a professional astronaut. Each will pay $55 million for the adventure, which includes 15 weeks of training, much of it at the Johnson Space Center, a 10-minute drive from Axiom’s headquarters, and possibly a trip on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets. Three entities have signed up for on-the-ground training, which starts at $1 million, Suffredini said, though he declined to name them. The inaugural trip will be only $50 million: “It’s a bargain!”
公理的空間站可容納八名乘客，其中包括一名專業(yè)宇航員。為了這一冒險，每人需支付5500萬美元的費(fèi)用，其中包括15周的培訓(xùn)，大部分在距離公理總部只有10分鐘車程的約翰遜航天中心(Johnson Space Center)進(jìn)行，他們有可能搭乘埃隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)的SpaceX火箭升空。蘇弗雷迪尼說，已經(jīng)有三個實(shí)體簽署了地面培訓(xùn)合同，起價為100萬美元，盡管他拒絕透露具體是什么人。首次旅行只收取5000萬美元：“這是一個優(yōu)惠價!”
“The lion’s share of the cost comes from the flight up and down,” he went on. “Rocket rides are expensive. You know people” — meaning competitors — “don’t know what they’re talking about if they’re quoting prices substantially less than what we’re stating.” (Aurora Station, a luxury space hotel being built by Orion Span, another Houston-based aerospace company, announced in April that it would charge $9.5 million per person for a 12-day trip, but did not mention the cost of the rocket ride there and back.)
“大部分成本來自飛去飛回的費(fèi)用，”他繼續(xù)說。“搭載火箭升空是很昂貴的。你知道，如果別人”——他是指競爭對手——“所提供的報價大大低于我們說的價格，他們就是不了解情況。”(獵戶星帶[Orion Span]是另一家總部位于休斯頓的航空航天公司，它于4月宣布，該公司建造的豪華太空酒店奧羅拉空間站[Aurora Station]將提供12天的太空旅行，費(fèi)用是每人950萬美元，但它沒有提到搭載火箭往返的成本。)
Phil Larson, a former space policy adviser to President Barack Obama who also worked for SpaceX, doesn’t expect travel prices to drop drastically in the next few years. “These habitat and outpost companies are great, but we need to solve the launch cost and transportation problem,” Larson said. “It’s like the biggest elephant in the room nobody talks about.”
曾為SpaceX工作，并曾擔(dān)任貝拉克·奧巴馬總統(tǒng)前太空政策顧問的菲爾·拉森(Phil Larson)并不認(rèn)為太空旅行的價格會在未來幾年急劇下降。“這些做棲息和定居的公司非常好，但我們需要解決啟動成本和運(yùn)輸問題，”拉森說。“這個問題就像房間里最大的大象，人們都對它視而不見，沒有人去談?wù)撍?rdquo;
The barriers to entry, beyond cost? Being 21 or older — there’s no age cap — and passing a medical exam, before the rest of training begins, as well as “The Right Stuff"-like tests of mind and mettle, like a spin in a human centrifuge (even the YouTube videos are hard to stomach). “Not only do you experience the Gs, you get put into a can that’s really — I mean, if you’re going to be a little claustrophobic, this is where you’re going to feel it,” Suffredini said. “About half the people that fly get sick for the first two or three days. Going with us for eight days gives you a chance to get over that. If you don’t get sick, you have all this time!”
除了費(fèi)用之外的準(zhǔn)入門檻?年齡在21歲及以上——沒有上限，并且在其余的訓(xùn)練開始前要先通過體檢，還有《太空英雄》(The Right Stuff)那一套——比如思維和勇氣測試，比如進(jìn)到人體離心機(jī)里轉(zhuǎn)一轉(zhuǎn)(就連YouTube視頻都令人難以承受)。“你不光能體驗(yàn)到重力加速度，你還會被放進(jìn)一個容器里，真的非常——我是說，如果你有一點(diǎn)幽閉恐懼癥的話，你就能在這里感受到了，”蘇弗雷迪尼說。“大約半數(shù)進(jìn)入艙內(nèi)的人在頭兩三天都會感到惡心。跟我們共度八天就能讓你有可能克服這點(diǎn)。如果不感覺惡心，那這些時間都是你的!”
To understand the grand scale of Axiom’s plans, it helps to know that astronauts have, thus far, largely been roughing it up there. The Johnson Space Center contains a life-size mock-up of the ISS, whose drab, beige interior is lined with drab, gray handholds to tether down things and people, necessary given the lack of gravity. A tour guide quaintly referred to the onboard bathroom as a “potty.” There are no showers.
想要理解公理太空計劃的宏大規(guī)模，可以了解一下，宇航員們在太空的生活迄今為止大多都還比較艱苦。約翰遜航天中心(Johnson Space Center)擁有一個真實(shí)大小的國際空間站模型，里面單調(diào)的米色內(nèi)襯搭配著單調(diào)的灰色把手。把手用來固定東西和人員，這在沒有重力的情況下非常必要。一位導(dǎo)游別致地將艙內(nèi)的衛(wèi)生間稱作“便盆”，里面沒有淋浴設(shè)施。
“The few folks that have gone to orbit as tourists, it wasn’t really a luxurious experience, it was kind of like camping," Suffredini said. The Axiom station will still have handholds, but thanks to Starck (whom Suffredini hadn’t heard of before Axiom’s branding consultant suggested they hire him) they will be plated in gold or wrapped in buttery leather, like the steering wheel of a Mercedes. Axiom’s private cabins will have screens for Netflixing and chilling — there’s not a lot to do up there, although going outside to do a spacewalk is a possibility — and there will be a great, glass-walled cupola to gather with travelers and take in a more panoramic view of Earth, perhaps with an adult beverage.
“對為數(shù)不多的幾個以游客身份進(jìn)入太空軌道的人來說，那并不是一個十分奢華的體驗(yàn)，有點(diǎn)像是露營，”蘇弗雷迪尼說。公理太空的空間站將仍舊保留把手，但多虧了斯塔克(在公理太空的品牌顧問建議他們雇用這個人之前，蘇弗雷迪尼從未聽說過他)，這些把手將被鍍金，或是包上一層柔滑的皮革，和梅賽德斯(Mercedes)的方向盤一樣。私人船艙將配備可以看Netflix或者用來放松的屏幕——在太空上并沒有多少事情可做，不過去外面來一段太空漫步倒是可能。還會有巨大的玻璃穹頂可讓旅行者聚在一起，一覽地球全景，可能還可以就著一杯成人飲料。
“Wine and cocktails work well,” said Michael Baine, Axiom’s chief engineer. “Beer and carbonated beverages do not. You don’t have the gravity to separate the carbon dioxide in your stomach so it causes a lot of bloating.”
“紅酒和雞尾酒的效果很好，”公理太空的首席工程師米歇爾·貝恩(Michael Baine)說。“啤酒和碳酸飲料不行。沒有重力來分解你胃里的二氧化碳，因此就會造成嚴(yán)重的腹脹。”
You’ll want to pack deodorant. “There’s a hygiene compartment where you do kind of a sponge bath,” Suffredini said.
屆時你會要用到香體露。“有一個衛(wèi)生隔間，可以來一次海綿擦身浴，”蘇弗雷迪尼說。
Suffredini’s professional life has revolved around space. “I was like everybody who watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and decided that NASA was cool and wanted to work there,” he said. While he’s overseen many missions, he hasn’t been in orbit and has no plans to see Axiom for himself. (“We’d have to work out who’s going to cover my cost,” he demurred, when asked.)
蘇弗雷迪尼的職業(yè)生涯一直以太空為中心。“我和所有看過尼爾·阿姆斯特朗(Neil Armstrong)月球行走然后認(rèn)定NASA很酷、想在那兒工作的人一樣，”他說。雖然負(fù)責(zé)過很多次任務(wù)，他自己從未進(jìn)入太空軌道，也沒打算親自去空間站上看看。(“我們得先解決誰來替我出這筆費(fèi)用，”在提問時他反對說。)
Still, Suffredini sees Axiom as a necessary step in continuing scientific research and development in space, which he believes is crucial to the survival of our species. Axiom may cater to rich thrill seekers, but he insists he is an idealist. “If you just go visit and come back, you’re not pioneering,” he said. “You’ve got to pioneer.”
但蘇弗雷迪尼仍將公理太空視作太空科學(xué)研究和發(fā)展繼續(xù)進(jìn)行的必要一步，他認(rèn)為這對我們?nèi)祟愡@個物種的生存十分關(guān)鍵。公理太空或許是為了富裕的尋求刺激者而造，但他堅(jiān)稱自己是一個理想主義者。“如果你只是去看看就回來，那你不是在開拓，”他說。“你必須開拓。”
