私人航天进入新纪元

    丹麦两名业余火箭爱好者，也是“哥本哈根亚轨道组织”（Copenhagen Suborbitals）的创办人用手工制造出了一枚所谓“开源、靠捐款资助的、非营利性的火箭”。他们的目标是要把人送进太空，而且他们将于今年夏天进行试射（不载人）。此外还有另一种听起来不那么令人啧啧称奇、但意义却更深远的低轨道设备。这是一种只有手掌大小的标准化人造卫星，名叫“立方星”（CubSat）。自从2003年以来，以及有50多颗立方星搭着“顺风车”随火箭进入太空。它们造价便宜（只有10万美元左右），易于制造，而且最重要的是，它们留下了失败的空间，因此可以让科学家尽情发挥创造性。它既是一个盒子，又能让你跳出盒子之外去思考。就连加州州立理工大学（California Polytechnic，“立方星”项目背后的学校之一）的一个本科生都可以在毕业前设计、制造和发射一枚卫星进入太空。

    一旦进入空轨道，这些小方块能做些什么呢？到目前为止，还做不了什么革命性的事（大部分都只是去拍照的）。但它拉近了太空与普通人的距离，这意味着太空将不再是那些最有钱的人和那些拿着巨额政府合同的人的后花园。太空与普通人的距离越近，像互联网那样的重大创新就越有可能发生。马斯科对未来的推测比他自己意识到的还要正确。

    译者：朴成奎

    In Denmark, two amateur rocketeers behind Copenhagen Suborbitals have hand-built what they call an "open source, donation funded, non-profit rocket." The goal is to send a man into space, and they are test launching the craft (without humans) this summer. A more game-changing -- though perhaps less immediately impressive -- low-orbit device is a standardized satellite that fits in the palm of your hand. Called a CubSat, 50 have reached space as stowaways on rockets since 2003. They are cheap (at $100,000 a comparative bargain), easy to build, and—most important of all—leave room for failure, which allows for creativity. It's a box that allows thinking outside, well, the box. An ambitious undergrad at California Polytechnic (one of the universities behind CubeSats) could design, build, and launch a satellite into space by the time she graduates.

    What will these little cubes do once in orbit? So far, nothing revolutionary (taking photos, mostly) but the more accessible space becomes for everyone, not just those with the deepest pockets or largest government contracts, the greater to possibility for radical innovation on the order of the Internet. Maybe Musk was more right than he realized.