想打败贝佐斯先飞上太空？布兰森：多训练多打网球

理查德·布兰森爵士和杰夫·贝佐斯都想率先实现商业太空旅行业务，而现在布兰森本人似乎还想身体力行地打败亚马逊的这位亿万富翁老板，早一步进入太空。

布兰森上周末接受BBC广播四频道采访时说，他正在接受多项训练，包括宇航员训练、健身训练和离心机训练，这样他的身体“或许能适应良好”。作为其中一项训练，他还把网球运动量翻了一番，变成一天四盘。据报道，布兰森希望能在一年内搭乘他的维珍银河公司（Virgin Galactic ）的航线进行太空旅行。

说到谁能拔得头筹的问题，布兰森告诉BBC，“关于谁能先把人类送进太空”，他和贝佐斯“正齐头并进”。但他补充道，“安全第一”，保证航空器能够把人们平安运至太空是“一场和我们自身进行的比赛”。

布兰森还说，实现商业太空旅行近在“几个月之内，而非几年”，他指出“未来将有许许多多激动人心的时刻。”

而另一边，贝佐斯希望能在2019年开始运行亚轨道太空旅游航线。他上周参加太空发展大会时说，目前他的所有工作中，最重要的就是自己的太空公司蓝色起源（Blue Origin）所推进的各项工作，贝佐斯在会上还强调了人们需要关注把月球作为未来定居点的想法。

“这不是什么遥不可及的未来，我认为，在几十年或者100年之内，在太空里干我们现在在地球上干的许多事儿都会开始变得容易多了，因为那时候我们拥有大量能源。”贝佐斯在发言中说道。“我们将不得不离开这个星球。我们会离开，这会让这个星球更美好。”

贝佐斯称，“这不是个选择题，而是必须要这么做”，不然我们就只能选择“停滞”。

尽管怀有种种雄心壮志，贝佐斯也承认，太空探索和定居月球“无法由一个公司单独完成。”他表达了希望和美国国家航空航天局（NASA）或欧洲太空署合作的想法，但承认这项事业最终需要“数千家公司数个世纪的通力合作”。（财富中文网）

译者：Agatha 

Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos each want to be the first to make commercial space travel a thing. And it seems that Branson is eager to personally beat the Amazon billionaire into space as well.

Branson told BBC Radio 4 over the weekend that he is undertaking a variety of training, including astronaut training, fitness training, and centrifuge, so that his body “will hopefully cope well.” As part of his training, he’s doubling his tennis playing to four sets a day. Branson reportedly hopes to become an astronaut with his company Virgin Galactic within 12 months.

Discussing who will get there first, Branson told the BBC that he and Bezos are “neck and neck as to who will put people into space first.” But, he added, they “have to do it safely,” calling it a “race with ourselves” to ensure that they each build a shuttle that is safe enough to send people to space.

Branson added that commercial space travel is “months away, not years away,” noting that “there are exciting times ahead.”

Bezos, meanwhile, hopes to start offering suborbital space tourism flights by 2019. Calling his work with his space company Blue Origin “the most important work” he’s doing at the Space Development Conference last week, Bezos also highlighted a need to focus on the moon as a place for eventual settlement.

“In the not-too-distant future—I’m talking decades, maybe 100 years, it’ll start to be easier to do a lot of the things that we currently do on Earth in space, because we’ll have so much energy,” Bezos told the audience. “We will have to leave this planet. We’re going to leave it, and it’s going to make this planet better.”

Bezos claimed that “this is not something that we may choose to do; this is something we must do,” calling the alternative “stasis.”

Despite his lofty ambitions, however, Bezos did concede that the exploration and eventual settlement of the moon “won’t be done by one company.” He noted a desire to collaborate with NASA or the European space agency, but said it will ultimately require “thousands of companies working in concert over many decades.”