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6park.com印度发射首枚火星探测器 India Launches Mars Mission 6park.comhttps://cn.reuters.com/news/picture/pic-india-launches-mars-mission-2013-idCNCNE9A501S20131106 6park.comhttps://cn.nytimes.com/world/20140220/c20indiaspace/zh-hant/dual/
印度的小成本火星計劃：每個國民貢獻一杯奶茶
From India, Proof That a Trip to Mars Doesn’t Have to Break the Bank
6park.comSARITHA RAI2014年2月20日 6park.com印度的薩迪什·達萬航天中心，火箭上搭載的火星軌道探測器。 INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANIZATION/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY 6park.comBANGALORE, India — While India’s recent launch of a spacecraft to Mars was a remarkable feat in its own right, it is the $75 million mission’s thrifty approach to time, money and materials that is getting attention. 6park.com印度班加羅爾——雖然印度最近發射的火星探測器本身就是一件了不起的成就，但引人關注的重點卻是，這次任務只花了7500萬美元（約合4.55億元人民幣），在時間、金錢和材料上均頗為節省。 6park.comJust days after the launch of India’s Mangalyaan satellite, NASA sent off its own Mars mission, five years in the making, named Maven. Its cost: $671 million. The budget of India’s Mars mission, by contrast, was just three-quarters of the $100 million that Hollywood spent on last year’s space-based hit, “Gravity.” 6park.com就在印度發射了「火星飛船」(Mangalyaan)探測器的幾天之後，美國國家航空航天局(NASA)也發射了自己的火星探測器MAVEN。NASA的任務花費了五年時間，耗資6.71億美元。相比之下，印度的火星探測任務的預算只有好萊塢花在去年上映的太空大片《地心引力》(Gravity)上的四分之三。這部影片的資金投入為1億美元。 6park.com“The mission is a triumph of low-cost Indian engineering,” said Roddam Narasimha, an aerospace scientist and a professor at Bangalore’s Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research. 6park.com班加羅爾的賈瓦哈拉爾·尼赫魯先進科學研究中心(Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research)的太空科學家兼教授羅達姆·納拉辛哈(Roddam Narasimha)說，「這次任務是印度低成本工程的一大勝利。」 6park.com“By excelling in getting so much out of so little, we are establishing ourselves as the most cost-effective center globewide for a variety of advanced technologies,” said Mr. Narasimha. 6park.com納拉辛哈說，「我們如此出色地用這麼少的資源做了這麼多事情。我們正成為集多項先進技術於一身的成效最高的全球中心。」 6park.com [iframe][/iframe] 6park.comIndia’s 3,000-pound Mars satellite carries five instruments that will measure methane gas, a marker of life on the planet. Maven (for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), weighs nearly twice as much but carries eight heavy-duty instruments that will investigate what went wrong in the Martian climate, which could have once supported life. 6park.com印度的火星探測衛星重約1.4噸，攜帶了五台用以尋找甲烷信號的設備。甲烷是火星上有生命跡象的標誌。Maven（「火星大氣與揮發演化」[Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution]的縮寫）的重量為印度探測衛星的兩倍，攜帶八台肩負重任的設備。這些設備將對可能曾經適宜生命存在的火星氣候後來出了什麼問題進行調查。 6park.com“Ours is a contrasting, inexpensive and innovative approach to the very complex mission,” said K. Radhakrishnan, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, in an interview at the space agency’s heavily guarded Bangalore headquarters. “Yet it is a technically well-conceived and designed mission,” he said. Wealthier countries may have little incentive to pursue technological advances on the cheap, but not a populous, resource-starved country. So jugaad, or building things creatively and inexpensively, has become a national strength. India built the world’s cheapest car ($2,500), the world’s cheapest tablet ($49), and even quirkier creations like flour mills powered by scooters. 6park.com印度空間研究組織（Indian Space Research Organization，簡稱ISRO）負責人K·拉達克里希南(K. Radhakrishnan)在該組織位於班加羅爾的守衛森嚴的總部接受採訪時說，「我們是在用一種與眾不同的低成本創新方式來完成一項非常複雜的任務。但是，這次任務在技術上是經過合理構思和設計的。」更富裕的國家可能不願追求低成本的技術進步，但人口眾多又資源貧乏的國家就另當別論了。因此，創造性地用低成本完成任務已經成為這個國家的強項。印度製造了世界上最便宜的汽車（2500美元）、世界上最便宜的平板電腦（49美元），甚至是像踏板車驅動的麵粉廠這樣的更為奇怪的東西。 6park.com“If necessity is the mother of invention, constraint is the mother of frugal innovation,” said Terri Bresenham, the chief executive of GE Healthcare, South Asia, who is based in Bangalore. GE Healthcare has the largest research and development operations in India and has produced low-cost innovations in infant health, cancer detection and heart disease treatment. 6park.com位於班加羅爾的GE醫療南亞公司(GE Healthcare)的首席執行官泰里·布勒森哈姆(Terri Bresenham)說，「如果說需求是創新之母的話，限制就是節儉創新之母。」GE醫療在印度擁有最大的研發部門，已經在新生兒健康、癌症圆橐约靶呐K病治療方面找到了低成本的創新方法。 6park.comIn India, even a priority sector like space research gets a meager 0.34 percent of the country’s total annual outlay. Its $1 billion space budget is only 5.5 percent of NASA’s budget. 6park.com在印度，即便是像太空研究這樣的優先領域，也只能可憐巴巴地佔到國家年度預算的0.34%。該國10億美元的太空項目預算也僅相當於NASA預算的5.5%。 6park.comISRO has learned to make cost-effectiveness a daily mantra. Its inexpensive but reliable launch capabilities have become popular for the launches of small French, German and British satellites. Although the space agency had to build ground systems from scratch, its Chandrayaan moon mission in 2008 cost one-tenth what other nations’ moon shots cost, said Mylswamy Annadurai, mission director. 6park.comISRO已經學會把提高成本效益作為時刻牢記於心的準則。其成本不高且值得信賴的發射技術成為法國、德國和英國發射小型衛星時的常見選擇。儘管這家太空探索機構不得不從零開始建立地面系統，但2008年的月球探測器「月船」(Chandrayaan)的項目主任米爾斯瓦米·安納杜拉伊(Mylswamy Annadurai)說，該任務的花費，僅為其他國家探月發射成本的十分之一。 6park.comThe most obvious way ISRO does it is low-cost engineering talent, the same reason so many software firms use Indian engineers. India’s abundant supply of young technical talent helped rein in personnel costs to less than 15 percent of the budget. “Rocket scientists in India cost very little,” said Ajey Lele, a researcher at a New Delhi think tank, the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, and author of “Mission Mars: India’s Quest for the Red Planet.” 6park.comISRO能夠做到這一點，最顯而易見的原因是低成本的工程技術人才——這也是許多軟件公司僱傭印度工程師的原因。印度的年輕技術人員充足，有助於把人力成本控制在預算的15%以下。新德里智庫國防研究與分析研究所(Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis)的研究員、著有《火星任務：印度的紅色星球探索》(Mission Mars: India』s Quest for the Red Planet)的艾傑·拉勒(Ajey Lele)說，「印度火箭科學家的工資非常低。」 6park.com[iframe][/iframe] 6park.comThe average age of India’s 2,500-person Mars team is 27. “At 50, I am the oldest member of my team; the next oldest is 32,” said Subbiah Arunan, the project’s director. Entry-level Indian space engineers make about $1,000 a month, less than a third of what their Western counterparts make. 6park.com印度的火星探索團隊由2500人組成，平均年齡為27歲。項目負責人蘇比亞·阿魯南(Subbiah Arunan)說，「我50歲，是我們團隊年齡最大的成員；年齡第二大的32歲。」印度初級航天工程師的工資大約是每月1000美元，還不到西方同類工程師的三分之一。 6park.comThe Indians also had a short development schedule that contributed heavily to the mission’s low cost, said Andrew Coates, planetary scientist at University College London and a leader of the European ExoMars expedition planned for 2018. The engineers had to compress their efforts into 18 months (other countries’ space vehicles have taken six years or more to build). It was either launch by November 2013 or wait another 26 months when the geometry of the sun, Mars and Earth would again be perfect for a launch. 6park.com2018年ExoMars火星探測計劃的負責人之一、倫敦大學學院(University College London)的行星科學家安德魯·科茨(Andrew Coates)說，印度的開發周期很短，這也是其太空探測任務成本較低的一個主要原因。工程師們的工作必須在18個月之內完成（其他國家建造空間探測器至少需要六年）。要麼2013年11月之前發射，要麼再等26個月，到太陽、火星和地球的位置再次適於發射的時候。 6park.com“Since the time was so short, for the first time in the history of such a project, we scheduled tasks by the hour — not days, not weeks,” said Mr. Arunan. Mr. Radhakrishnan added: “Could we pull it off in less than two years’ time? Frankly, I doubted it.” 6park.com阿魯南說，「因為時間如此短暫，我們的任務安排是以小時——不是天、也不是星期為單位，這在類似項目的歷史上是頭一次。」拉達克里希南補充說：「我們能在兩年之內完成它嗎？老實說，我當時很懷疑。」 6park.comCost savings also came from using similar systems across a dozen concurrent projects. Many related technologies could be used in the Mars project; Astrosat, an astronomy mission to be launched in late 2014; the second moon mission, which is two years away; and even Aditya, a solar mission four years out. 6park.com成本節約的原因還在於，在十幾個同時進行的項目上使用相似的系統。許多彼此關聯的技術可以被用於這次火星項目，比如即將於2014年末啟動的太空項目Astrosat、距今還有兩年時間的第二次探月，乃至四年後的太陽系探測任務「太陽神」(Aditya)。 6park.comSystems like the attitude control, which maintains the orientation of the spacecraft; the gyro, a sensor that measures the satellite’s deviation from its set path; or the star tracker, a sensor that orients the satellite to distant objects in the celestial sphere, are the same across several ISRO missions. 6park.com像保持飛行器朝向的姿態控制系統、測量衛星偏離預設軌道程度的陀螺儀、以及在太空讓衛星對準天球中遠處星體的恆星追蹤器，這些系統在ISRO的幾個探測任務中都是通用的。 6park.com“The building blocks are kept the same so we don’t have to tailor-make for each mission,” said Mr. Annadurai of the moon mission. “Also, we have a ready backup if a system fails.” 6park.com探月任務的安納杜拉伊說，「基本要素都保持了一致，所以我們不需要為每一項任務進行專門定製。此外，如果某個系統失靈，我們有現成的備用系統。」 6park.comTeams also did the kind of thing engineers working on missions do around the world. They worked through weekends with no overtime pay, putting in more hours to the dollar. Mr. Arunan slept on the couch in his office through the 18 months, rereading his favorite P. G. Wodehouse novels to relieve stress. "This is the Indian way of working,” said Mr. Annadurai. 6park.com這些團隊也在做全世界承擔太空探測任務的工程師都會做的一件事。他們周末加班加點，沒有加班費卻要多工作好些個小時。阿魯南這18個月一直睡在辦公室的沙發上，為了緩解壓力，重新讀起了他最喜歡的P·G·伍德豪斯(P. G. Wodehouse)的小說。安納杜拉伊說，這就是印度人的工作方式。 6park.comDespite its cost-effectiveness, many have argued that India’s extraterrestrial excursions are profligate in a country starved of even basic necessities like clean drinking water and toilets. Millions sleep hungry at night, critics have emphasized. They condemn the Mars mission as nothing more than showing off. 6park.com儘管非常划算，但許多人認為，在連清潔飲用水和廁所等基本的生活必需條件都缺乏的印度，太空探索活動是一種浪費。批評人士強調，印度還有很多人每天晚上餓着肚子睡覺。他們譴責說，火星探測任務純粹是為了炫耀。 6park.comScientists have also said that space exploration and the alleviation of poverty need not be mutually exclusive. “If the Mars mission’s $75 million was distributed equally to every Indian, they would be able to buy a cup of roadside chai once every three years,” said Mr. Narasimha, the aerospace scientist, referring to the tea that many Indians drink. 6park.com科學家們卻說，空間探索和扶貧並不矛盾。太空科學家納拉辛哈說，「如果火星探測項目的7500萬美元平均分攤給每一個印度人，也只夠他們用這些錢每三年在路邊買一杯香料奶茶。」 6park.com“My guess is that even the poorest Indians will happily forgo their chai to be able to see their country send a rocket all the way to Mars.” 6park.com「我想，即使是最貧困的印度人也願意放棄自己的奶茶，選擇讓自己的祖國把火箭送上火星吧。」 6park.com 6park.com贴主:nowhere1于2020_07_23 17:00:16编辑 6park.com贴主:nowhere1于2020_07_23 17:18:28编辑
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