Why you’re going to Mars?
译：为什么你需要去火星？
初稿：2020年07月21日
明天中国就要用长征5号发射天问一号，探索火星了，预祝成功。
演讲者在很多年前就提出火星直击计划，按照他的计算，人类使用当年的登月火箭就可能登陆火星，当然还有其它的条件。有一本书《赶往火星》，是 Mars Direct 的中译本，有兴趣可以找来看看。
译注：这是一段视频演讲最后，一个观众提问的回答。原始视频是Dr. Robert Zubrin - Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKQSijn9FBs，在时间轴的 00:49:19 ~ 00:53:43。我把这个视频搬到了B站，https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1YZ4y1T7gR/。
译注：下文中 A 为观众，R 为 Dr. Robert Zubrin。
A: So, when you originally started talking, you mentioned that you were going to address the “Why you’re going to Mars?” But you never actually mentioned anything about that in your talk.
译：当你刚开始演讲时，你提到说你会谈“为什么要去火星？”但是在你的演讲中你一点都没有提到。
R: All right.
译：是的。
A: Could you go over that?
译：你可以谈谈吗？
R: Sure.
译：当然可以。
Okay, as I see it, there’s three reasons.
译：好，在我看来，有三个原因。
Why Mars should be the goal of our space program? And in short, it’s because Mars is where the science is, it’s where the challenge is, and it’s where the future is.
译：为什么火星应该是我们太空计划的目标呢？简而言之，那是因为火星是科学之所在，是挑战之所在，也是未来之所在。
It’s where the science is because Mars, okay, was once a warm and wet planet. It had liquid water on its surface for more than a billion years, which is about five times as long as it took life to appear on earth after there was liquid water here. So if the theory is correct that life is a natural development from chemistry or if you have liquid water, various elements, and sufficient time, life should have appeared on mars, even if it subsequently went extinct. And if we can go to mars and find fossils of past life, we’ll have proven that development of life is a general phenomenon in the universe.
译：说火星是科学之所在，是因为它曾经是一颗温暖湿润的星球。在它表面液态水存在了有10亿年以上，那是地球上出现液态水后，再出现生命的时间的5倍。所以如果如下的理论是正确的，即生命是一个化学的自然过程，或者说如果你有液态水，各种元素，加上足够的时间，生命应该已经出现在了火星，即使它的后代最终走向了灭绝。如果我们能去到火星，找到了过去生命的化石，我们就能证明生命的诞生在宇宙中是一个普遍的现象。
Okay, or, alternatively, if we go to mars and find plenty of evidence of past bodies of water but no evidence of fossils or development of life, that could say that the development of life from chemistry is not sort of a natural process that occurs with high probability, but includes elements of freak chance, and we could be alone in the universe.
译：或者，相反，如果我们去了火星，发现了大量曾经的水体的证据，但是没有化石证据或者生命产生的迹象，这就说明，生命从化学物质诞生并不是一种自然的大概率的过程，而是包含非常稀少的运气成分，那么我们在宇宙中就是孤独的。
Furthermore, if we can go to mars and drill, because there’s liquid water underground on mars, reach the groundwater, there could be life there now. And if we can get hold of that and look at it and examine its biological structure and biochemistry, we could find out if life as it exists on Mars is the same as earth life, because all earth life, at the biochemical level, is the same. We all use the same amino acids, the same method of replicating and transmitting information, RNA and DNA, all that.
译：更进一步，如果我们去了火星，然后可以转孔，因为火星地下有液态水，打到地下水后，那儿现在说不定就有生命。如果我们能抓住它，观察它，检查它的生物学结构和生物化学成分，我们可以弄明白火星上如果真存在生命，是否和地球上的一样，因为所有的地球生命，在生物化学层级，都是一样的。我们都拥有相同的氨基酸，相同的复制和传递信息的方法，RNA 和 DNA，所有这些。
Is that what life has to be, or could life be very different from that? Are we what life is? Or, are we just one example drawn from a much vaster tapestry of possibilities?
译：生命只能是这种形式吗，或者生命完全不同于此？我们就是生命的样子吗？或者说，我们只是非常庞大的可能性中的一种呢？
This is real science. This is fundamental questions that thinking men and women have wondered about for thousands of years: the role of life in the universe. This is very different from going to the moon and dating craters in order to produce enough data to get a credible paper to publish in the journal of geophysical research and get tenure, okay?
译：这是真正的科学。这是真正核心的问题，人类的思想家们千年以来一直想弄明白的问题：生命在宇宙中的角色。这完全不同去月球，测定月面撞击坑的的年代，就为了产生足够的数据来写一篇可信的文章，然后发布在地球物理学的刊物上，然后获得一个教职。是吧？
[laughter]
Okay. This is, you know, hypothesis-driven, critical science. This is the real thing.
译：你知道，这是假设驱动的，至关重要的科学。这才是正事。
Second: the challenge.
译：第二：挑战。
Okay, you know… I think societies are like individuals. We grow when we challenge ourselves. We stagnate when we do not. A humans to Mars program would be a tremendously bracing challenge for our society. It would be tremendously productive, particularly among youth.
译：好，你知道吗–我认为社会和人一样。我们挑战自己时，我们才在成长。我们什么都不做时，我们就停滞不前。人类登陆火星对于我们社会来说，将会是一个非常巨大的、令人振奋的挑战。它会爆发出极其庞大的创造力，尤其是在年轻人身上。
Okay, humans to Mars program would say to every kid in school today, “Learn your science, and you could be an explorer of a new world.” We’d get millions of scientists, engineers, inventors, technological entrepreneurs, doctors, medical researchers out of that.And the intellectual capital from that would enormously benefit us. It would dwarf the cost of the program.
译：人类登陆火星计划会告诉现在学校里的每个孩子，“学好你的科学课，你将会成为新世界的探险者。”我们将从中得到上百万的科学家、工程师、发明家、科技创业者、医生、药物研究者。从这些带来的智力财富将使我们受益匪浅。它会降低整个计划的成本。
And then, finally, it’s the future.
译：然后，最终，它是未来。
Mars is the closest planet that has on it all the resources needed to support life and, therefore, civilization. If we do what we can do in our time, if we establish that little Plymouth Rock settlement on mars, then, 500 years from now, there’ll be new branches of human civilization on Mars. And, i believe, throughout nearby interstellar space.
译：火星是离我们最近的星球，它上面拥有支撑生命或者说文明所需的全部资源。假如我们现在就去做我们能做的，假如我们在火星上建立起了小小的普利茅斯岩石定居点（据说，当年五月花号登陆美洲大陆时，踏足的第一颗岩石，上面刻着1620），那么，500年后，在火星上就会产生一个人类文明的新分支。并且，我相信，会遍及临近的星际空间。
But, you know, look, I ask any American, “What happened in 1492?” They’ll tell me, “well, Columbus sailed in 1492,” and that is correct. He did. But that’s not the only thing that happened in 1492.
译：但是，比如说，我问任何一个美国人：“1492年发生了什么？”他们会告诉我说：“呃，哥伦布在1492年起航。”是的，那是对的。他确实做了。但是那不是1492年发生的唯一的事。
In 1492, England and France signed a peace treaty.
译：1492年，英法签订了和约。
In 1492, the Borgias took over the papacy.
译：1492年，波吉亚家族接管了教皇职位。
In 1492, Lorenzo de’Medici, the richest man in the world, died, okay.
译：1492年，洛伦佐·德·美第奇，世界上最富有的人，去世了。
A lot of things happened. If there had been newspapers in 1492, which there weren’t, but if there had those would have been the headlines, not this Italian weaver’s son taking a bunch of ships and sailing off to nowhere, okay.
译：发生了很多事。如果1492年有报纸，当然当时没有，但是如果有，这些一定会是头条，而不是这名意大利纺织工的儿子，他率领一支船队，扬帆驶向未知。
[laughter]
But columbus is what we remember, not the Borgias taking over the papacy.
译：但是我们记住的是哥伦布，而不是波吉亚家族接管了教皇职位。
Okay, well, 500 years from now, people are not going to remember which faction came out on top in Iraq, or Syria, or whatever, and who was in and who was out.
译：那么，500年后，人们不会记得伊拉克或者叙利亚的哪个派别会胜出，或者别的什么，谁来谁去。
And, you know – but they will remember what we do to make their civilization possible, okay? So this is the most important thing we could do, most important thing we could do in this time. And if you have it in your power to do something great and important and wonderful, then you should.
译：你知道–但是他们会记住我们做的事，让他们的文明成为可能，是吧？所以这是我们能做的最重要的事，现在能做的最重要的事。并且如果你有力量来做一些伟大的、重要的、精彩的事，那么你就应该去做。