奔月提速：美国要在2024年让宇航员再次上月球

美国副总统彭斯于本周二宣布，2024年美国将再次送宇航员登上月球，较美国国家航天航空局（NASA）的原计划提前了四年。

在国家太空委员会于阿拉巴马州亨茨维尔举行的一次会议上，彭斯表示，起初设定的目标是2028年，“还不够快”。他回顾道，肯尼迪政府1962年就成功实现宇航员登月，当时人类进入太空时代不过12年。他说，当今时代还要等9年，实在太久。据多家媒体报道，彭斯表示，“现在我们的实力可比当时强。”

国家太空委员会成立于1989年，1993年解散。2017年6月，特朗普任总统后下达总统令将其恢复。六个月后，特朗普将登月定为美国航空业的正式政策，最早2018年就要实现。本周二彭斯表态时进一步加快计划日程，NASA的再登月计划只有五年时间。

NASA的局长吉姆·布里登斯廷在声明中表示：“唐纳德·特朗普总统要求NASA加快重返月球的计划，在2024年以前将人类再次送上月球。这次我们去月球会停留一段时间，利用登月经验实现接下来的一大飞跃——送宇航员登陆火星。”

彭斯讲话中也表现出对NASA有些不耐烦。他提到了波音公司花18年开发的太空发射系统，消耗了政府几十亿美元预算，结果“被官僚的惰性和所谓的分析瘫痪严重困扰。”

国家太空委员会建议特朗普，强制NASA“接受新的思维，首先要大胆制定目标，然后坚定履行。”类似目标之一便是让载人飞行器在月球的南极附近着陆，因为科学家认为月球南极富含水冰，可以用于支持生命。

“我们一定要把紧迫当口号，”彭斯在会上说，“这不仅仅是和对手的竞争，还是跟最大的敌人，也就是自满情绪竞赛。”（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

Vice President Mike Pence announced Tuesday the U.S. is going to send astronauts back to the moon’s surface in 2024, four year earlier than NASA had been planning.

Pence, speaking at a Huntsville, Ala., meeting of the National Space Council, said the original 2028 target date was “just not good enough.” Recalling the Kennedy administration’s efforts to send astronauts to the moon in 1962, only 12 years after the dawn of the space age, Pence said nine years was too long to wait. “We’re better than that,” he said, according to various press reports.

The National Space Council was created in 1989 before being disbanded in 1993. President Trump revived the council in June 2017 through an executive order. Six months later, Trump made it official U.S. space policy to return humans to the moon by as early as 2018. Tuesday’s announcement shortens the timeline, giving NASA only five years to return Americans to the moon.

“President Donald Trump has asked NASA to accelerate our plans to return to the Moon and to land humans on the surface again by 2024,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. “This time, when we go to the Moon, we will stay. And then we will use what we learn on the Moon to take the next giant leap—sending astronauts to Mars ”

Pence’s speech expressed a note of impatience toward NASA, saying that a rocket known as the Space Launch System—which Boeing has been developing for 18 years while running billions of dollars over budget—has “been plagued by bureaucratic inertia, by what some call the paralysis of analysis.”

The council will recommend that Trump force NASA to “embrace a new mindset that begins with setting bold goals and staying on schedule.” One such goal is to prepare for a crewed mission’s landing near the moon’s south pole, which scientists believe contains enough ice that can be used to support life.

“Urgency must be our watchword,” Pence said at the meeting. “It’s not just competition against our adversaries. We’re also racing against our worst enemy: complacency.”