1.The career that I started early on in my life was looking for exotic life forms in exotic places, and at that time I was working in the Antarctic and the Arctic,
我在生涯早期开展的工作 是从奇异的地方寻找奇异的生命形式 南极、北极、
2.and high deserts and low deserts.
莫哈韦沙漠以及科罗拉多沙漠都是我当时工作过的地点
3.Until about a dozen years ago, when I was really captured by caves, and I really re-focused most of my research in that direction.
直到十几年前我才被洞穴的魅力所吸引 并真正将我的研究集中到这一方向
4.So I have a really cool day job– I get to do some really amazing stuff.
于是我有了非常酷的日常工作–着手处理一些令人惊奇的事物
5.I work in some of the most extreme cave environments on the planet.
我在这个星球上最极端的洞穴环境中工作
6.Many of them are trying to kill us from the minute we go into them, but nevertheless, they’re absolutely gripping, and contain unbelievable biological wonders
其中的许多在我们进入的那一刻起就威胁着我们的生命 但是它们绝对引人入胜 并且拥有令人难以置信的生物奇观
7.that are very, very different from those that we have on the planet.
这些生物与地表上的普通生物具有很大很大的不同
8.Apart from the intrinsic value of the biology and mineralogy and geo-microbiology that we do there, we’re also using these as templates
该类洞穴不仅可以使我们获得生物学 矿物学和地质微生物学方面的内在价值 还可以作为模板
9.for figuring out how to go look for life on other planets.
来帮助我们研究怎样去寻找 其它行星上的生命
10.Particularly Mars, but also Europa, the small, icy moon around Jupiter.
特别是火星以及木卫二– 一颗小的、被冰面覆盖的木卫上的生命
11.And perhaps, someday, far beyond our solar system itself.
甚至，也许某一天，寻找太阳系外的生命
12.I’m very passionately interested in the human future, on the Moon and Mars particularly, and elsewhere in the solar system.
我对人类在月球、火星 以及太阳系其它角落的未来 有着特别浓厚的兴趣
13.I think it’s time that we transitioned to a solar system-going civilisation and species.
我想现在是我们过渡为 一个横跨太阳系的种族和文明的时候了
14.And, as an outgrowth of all of this then, I wonder about whether we can, and whether we even should, think about transporting Earth-type life to other planets.
而作为一种过渡的可能后果 我想知道我们是不是能，甚至是不是应该 考虑将地球上的生命运送至其它行星
15.Notably Mars, as a first example.
火星显然是第一个要考虑的例子
16.Something I never talk about in scientific meetings is how I actually got to this state and why I do the work that I do.
我从未在学术会议上提及的一些事情 是我怎样达到现在的状况 以及我做这种工作的初衷是什么
17.Why don’t I have a normal job, a sensible job?
为什么我不去找一个正常点的工作，一个实际点的工作？
18.And then of course, I blame the Soviet Union.
当然，我要把这归咎于前苏联
19.Because in the mid-1950s, when I was a tiny child, they had the audacity to launch a very primitive little satellite called Sputnik,
因为在1950年代中期 当我还是个小孩的时候 苏联人大胆得发射了一颗 被称作伴侣号的原始的小卫星
20.which sent the Western world into a hysterical tailspin.
这一壮举使西方世界陷入了歇斯底里般的混乱
21.And a tremendous amount of money went into the funding of science and mathematics skills for kids.
于是，大量的资金 被投入到教育中 以提高孩子们的数学和科学素养
22.And I’m a product of that generation, like so many other of my peers.
就像许多我的同行一样 我也是那一代的产品之一
23.It really caught hold of us, and caught fire, and it would be lovely if we could reproduce that again now.
这样的教育限制了我们，令我们恼火 如果我们现在能回炉重造的话会比较不错
24.Of course, refusing to grow up — — even though I impersonate a grown-up in daily life, but I do a fairly good job of that — but really retaining that childlike quality
当然，拒绝长大使我一直保持 孩子般的特质–不会在乎其他人 对你所感兴趣的事物的看法 这是非常重要的
25.of not caring what other people think about what you’re interested in, is really critical.
不过,在日常生活中 我还是相当善于扮演一个成年人的角色
26.The next element is the fact that I have applied a value judgement and my value judgment is that the presence of life is better than no life.
另一个元素是 我将自己的价值判断应用在工作中 这种价值判断便是生命的出现 要好于没有生命
27.And so, life is more valuable than no life.
也就是有生命比没有生命更加更加珍贵
28.And so I think that that holds together a great deal of the work that people in this audience approach.
并且我相信，这样的价值判断 与在做的观众大部分的工作 是紧密结合的
29.I’m very interested in Mars, of course, and that was a product of my being a young undergraduate when the Viking Landers landed on Mars.
我对火星确实很感兴趣 这是一个我在读本科时的创作 那时候海盗号探测器已经在火星着陆
30.And that took what had been a tiny little astronomical object in the sky, that you would see as a dot, and turned it completely into a landscape,
这将原本看起来 仅仅是天空中一个小小天体的 你们看做一个小点的东西 彻底得变成了一幅景观图
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31.as that very first primitive picture came rastering across the screen.
当最原始的图像 像光栅一样划过屏幕的时候
32.And when it became a landscape, it also became a destination, and altered, really, the course of my life.
在它变为一幅景观图的同时 它也成为了一个目的地 并且改变了我的人生轨迹
33.In my graduate years I worked with my colleague and mentor and friend, Steve Schneider, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research,
在我的毕业年 我与我的同事、导师兼朋友，斯蒂夫·斯内德一起 在国家大气研究中心
34.working on global change issues.
进行关于全球变化问题的研究
35.We’ve written a number of things on the role of Gaia hypothesis — whether or not you could consider Earth as a single entity in any meaningful scientific sense,
我们写了大量的东西 都是是关于盖亚假说（能否在重要科学的意义上 将地球看做一个独立存在的实体） 的作用
36.and then, as an outgrowth of that, I worked on the environmental consequences of nuclear war.
后来，顺理成章的 我又研究了核战争对环境的产生的后果
37.So, wonderful things and grim things.
有令人惊奇研究也有令人感到恐惧的研究
38.But what it taught me was to look at Earth as a planet with external eyes, not just as our home.
但这些研究教会了我采用外部的视角 将地球看做一颗行星，而不仅仅是我们的家园
39.And that is a wonderful stepping away in perspective, to try to then think about the way our planet behaves, as a planet, and with the life that’s on it.
这是一种思考方法上的进步 可以帮助我们理解 地球作为一个普通行星 以及作为一个具有生命的行星的特质
40.And all of this seems to me to be a salient point in history.
同时我认为这样的进步 也是一个历史转折点
41.We’re getting ready to begin to go through the process of leaving our planet of origin and out into the wider solar system and beyond.
人类已经正在准备 踏上征程，离开地球 去征服广袤的太阳系甚至更远的地方
42.So, back to Mars.
让我们回到火星
43.How hard is is going to be to find life on Mars?
在火星上找到生命是多难的一件事？
44.Well, sometimes it’s really very hard for us to find each other, even on this planet.
有时候我们会觉得在地球上想要找的彼此 都不是一件容易的事
45.So, finding life on another planet is a non-trivial occupation and we spend a lot of time trying to think about that.
所以想要在其他行星发现生命 的难度可想而知 而且我们也花了大量的时间来思考这个问题
46.Whether or not you think it’s likely to be successful, sort of depends on what you think about the chances of life in the universe.
一个人对是否可能成功找到火星生命的判断 某种程度取决于其对宇宙 生命存在几率的看法
47.I think, myself, that life is a natural outgrowth of the increasing complexification of matter over time.
我个人认为 生命是物质随着时间的推移 而逐渐复化的自然结果
48.So, you start with the Big Bang and you get hydrogen, and then you get helium, and then you get more complicated stuff, and you get planets forming —
比如，从大爆炸开始首先形成了氢气 然后是氦气，后来又有了一些更复杂的东西 直到行星最终形成
49.and life is a common, planetary-based phenomenon, in my view.
从我的观点看来，生命只是一种以行星为基础的普通现象
50.Certainly, in the last 15 years, we’ve seen increasing numbers of planets outside of our solar system being confirmed, and just last month, a couple of weeks ago,
当然，在过去的十五年中 我们看到 越来越多的系外行星被确认存在 就在上个月，几个星期之前
51.a planet in the size-class of Earth has actually been found.
一个地球大小的行星 刚刚被发现
52.And so this is very exciting news.
这是个令人兴奋的消息
53.So, my first bold prediction is that, is that in the universe, life is going to be everywhere.
所以，我第一个大胆的预测是 在宇宙中生命无处不在
54.It’s going to be everywhere we look — where there are planetary systems that can possibly support it.
凡是在我们视野内的 行星系统都有可能支持生命的存在
55.And those planetary systems are going to be very common.
而此类的行星系统将会是非常常见的
56.So, what about life on Mars?
那么火星上的生命呢？
57.Well, if somebody had asked me about a dozen years ago what I thought the chances of life on Mars would be, I would’ve probably said, a couple of percent.
如果有人十几年前问我 关于火星上存在生命的机率有多大的问题 我当时可能会回答有百分之几
58.And even that was considered outrageous at the time.
尽管在当时这种机率被认为大得有点惊人
59.I was once sneeringly introduced by a former NASA official, as the only person on the planet who still thought there was life on Mars.
我曾经被一位前任NASA官员 轻蔑得介绍为 地球上唯一还认为 火星上有生命存在的人
60.Of course, that official is now dead, and I’m not, so there’s a certain amount of glory in outliving your adversaries.
当然，那位官员现在已经死了，而我还没有 所以比我的对手活得长 还是相当值得骄傲的一件事
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61.But things have changed greatly over the last dozen years.
但在过去的十几年中 很多东西都发生了巨大的变化
62.And the reason that they have changed is because we now have new information.
之所以发生这么大变化的原因是 我们现在有了新的信息
63.The amazing Pathfinder mission that went in ’97, and the MER Rover missions that are on Mars as we speak now and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express,
令人惊喜的97年开拓者任务 以及火星探索任务 该任务在此时还在火星进行着 还有欧洲空间局的火星快车号
64.has taught us a number of amazing things.
带给我们许许多多惊奇的发现
65.There is sub-surface ice on that planet.
这其中就包括火星地下冰的发现
66.And so where there is water, there is a very high chance of our kind of life.
哪里有水 哪里就非常有可能存在着类似我们这样的生命
67.There’s clearly sedimentary rocks all over the place ?
在一个登陆车所在的古老的海床上
68.one of the landers is sitting in the middle of an ancient seabed, and there are these amazing structures called blueberries, which are these little, rocky concretions
到处都明显的存在着沉积岩 以及一种被称作蓝莓的奇异结构 这些小而硬的凝结物即是
69.that we are busy making biologically in my lab right now.
我的实验室内正在紧锣密鼓生物合成的 也是这种物质
70.So, with all of these things put together, I think that the chances of life are much greater than I would’ve ever thought.
将这些东西都放在一起 我有理由认为生命存在的机率 远远大于我曾经的预测
71.I think that the chance of life having arisen on Mars, sometime in its past, is maybe one in four to maybe even half and half.
我认为在曾经某个时期火星上产生过生命的机率 大概在1/4到1/2之间
72.So this is a very bold statement.
这是个非常大胆的立场
73.I think it’s there, and I think we need to go look for it, and I think it’s underground.
我认为生命的确在那里，并且是在地下 而我们需要去寻找它
74.So the game’s afoot, and this is the game that we play in astro-biology.
好戏正在上演，戏台就是天体生物学
75.How do you do you try to get a handle on extraterrestrial life?
接下来的问题是我们该如何驾驭外星生命？
76.How do you plan to look for it?
如何谋划寻找过程？
77.How do you know it when you find it?
当我们发现生命后如何才能得知？
78.Because if it’s big and obvious, we would’ve already found it — it would’ve already bitten us on the foot, and it hasn’t.
因为如果生命够大够明显的的话，我们早就已经发现它了 -如果可能它早就能咬到我们的脚了
79.So, we know that it’s probably quite cryptic.
所以也许那里的生命很隐秘
80.Very critically, how do we protect it, if we find it, and not contaminate it?
还有非常关键的一点是当我们发现生命了之后 怎样保护它并免于污染它？
81.And also, even perhaps more critically, because this is the only home planet we have, how do we protect us from it, while we study it?
也许更关键的一点，由于地球 是我们唯一的家园 我们该怎样在研究外星生命的同时保护自己？
82.So why might it be hard to find?
那么为什么那里的生命可能很难被发现？
83.Well, it’s probably microscopic, and it’s never easy to study microscopic things, although the amazing tools that we now have to do that
当然，这种生命可能是显微尺度的 想要研究这种生命也绝非易事 即使我们现在有先进的工具
84.allow us to study things in much greater depth, at much smaller scales than ever before.
让我们能比以前更加深入得研究 尺寸异常微小的生物
85.But it’s probably hiding, because if you are out sequestering resources from your environment, that makes you yummy, and other things might want to eat you, or consume you.
这些生命也有可能隐藏在暗处 而我们对它们来说相当美味 所以有可能被他们吃掉
86.And so, there’s a game of predator-prey that’s going to be, essentially, universal, really, in any kind of biological system.
在任何生物系统中 这种捕食与被捕食的关系 都是本质上存在的
87.It also may be very, very different in its fundamental properties ?
这种生命也许在内在属性上也与我们有本质区别
88.its chemistry, or its size.
无论是化学成分还是体积大小
89.We say small, but what does that mean?
我们说它小，但具体有多小？
90.Is it virus-sized? Is it smaller than that?
跟病毒差不多大？还是比病毒更小？
91.Is it bigger than the biggest bacterium? We don’t know.
亦或是比最大的细菌还大？天知道
92.And speed of activity, which is something that we face in our work with sub-surface organisms, because they grow very, very slowly.
还有它们的活力，这也是我们在研究 地下生物时所遇到的问题 因为它们的生长速度是异常之慢
93.If I were to take a swab off your teeth and plate it on a petri plate, within about four or five hours, I would have to see growth.
如果我从你的牙上擦下来点东西 并放在培养皿上 大概过4、5个小时我们就肯定会看到这些生物的生长
94.But the organisms that we work with, from the sub-surface of Earth, very often it’s months — and in many cases, years — before we see any growth whatsoever.
但对我们研究的地下 生物来说 历时数月甚至数年才能观察到生长现象 是常事
95.So they are, intrinsically, a slower life-form.
所以他们从本质上将属于慢速生命形式
96.But the real issue is that we are guided by our limited experience, and until we can think out of the box of our cranium and what we know,
但其实真正的问题在于 我们都习惯于被自己的经验所引导 直到我们能冲破思想的樊篱后
97.then we can’t recognise what to look for, or how to plan for it.
我们才能意识到我们要找的是什么 或者怎样为其制定计划
98.So, perspective is everything and, because of the history that I’ve just briefly talked to you about, I have learned to think about Earth
所以正确的思考方法是一切的前提 并且，正如我之前简介的自己的那段经历 我已经学会在思考问题的时候
99.as an extraterrestrial planet.
将地球看做一个普通的地外行星
100.And this has been invaluable in our approach to try to study these things.
这已经成为我们研究相关问题的一个非常宝贵的手段
101.This is my favorite game on airplanes: where you’re in an airplane and you look out the window, you see the horizon.
这是我乘飞机时喜欢的的一个游戏 在飞机上，从舷窗眺望 你可以看到地平线
102.I always turn my head on the side, and that simple change makes me go from seeing this planet as home, to seeing it as a planet.
这时候我总是将头靠在一侧 这一小小的改变会让我 看地球的角度从自己的家 变换到一个行星
103.It’s a very simple trick, and I never fail to do it when I’m sitting in a window seat.
这是个非常简单的戏法，令我乐此不疲 当我坐在靠窗的座位的时候
104.Well, this is what we apply to our work.
当然我们也把这应用与我们的工作
105.This shows one of the most extreme caves that we work in.
这幅照片展示的是我们工作过的最极端的洞穴
106.This is Cueva de Villa Luz in Tabasco, in Mexico, and this cave is saturated with sulfuric acid.
这是位于墨西哥塔巴斯科州的光明洞 洞内充满了硫酸
107.There is tremendous amounts of hydrogen sulfide coming into this cave from volcanic sources and from the breakdown of evaporite — minerals below the carbonates in which this cave is formed —
火山以及分解的蒸发石 –一种藏在洞穴主要成分： 碳酸盐之下的矿物 产生大量的硫化氢气体
108.and it is a completely hostile environment for us.
这使洞穴环境变得对人类极其不利
109.We have to go in with protective suits and breathing gear, and 30 parts per million of H2S will kill you.
要想进入洞穴，我们必须穿着保护服以及呼吸装置 否则百万分之三十的硫化氢就会要了我们的命
110.This is regularly several hundred parts per million.
而洞穴里的硫化氢浓度高达百万分之几百
111.So, it’s a very hazardous environment, with CO as well, and many other gases.
除此之外那里还有一氧化碳等气体 所以那里的环境的确异常危险
112.These extreme physical and chemical parameters make the biology that grows in these places very special.
这些极端的物理化学参数 会使得生长在这里的生物变得异常
113.Because contrary to what you might think, this is not devoid of life.
也许与你们想象的相反，那里不是生命的禁区
114.This is one of the richest caves that we have found on the planet, anywhere.
这是我们发现的 地球上生命种类最丰富的洞穴之一
115.It’s bursting with life.
简直可以说是塞满了生命
116.The extremes on Earth are interesting in their own right, but one of the reasons that we’re interested in them is because they represent, really,
地球上的各种极端本身就是很吸引人的 但我们之所以对其感兴趣的原因之一 是这些环境极端恶劣的洞穴可以为我们呈现
117.the average conditions that we may expect on another planets.
我们想象中的其他星球的普通环境
118.So, this is part of the ability that we have, to try to stretch our imagination, in terms of what we may find in the future.
这使我们具有部分 扩展自我想象力 用以预测未来可能的发现的能力
119.There’s so much life in this cave, and I can’t even begin to scratch the surface of it with you.
太多太多的生命生存在于这个洞穴里 覆盖了整个洞穴 以至于我们都不能看到它原来的表面
120.But one of the most famous objects out of this are what we call Snottites, for obvious reasons.
其中一种著名的物体 我们叫它“鼻涕”
121.This stuff looks like what comes out of your two-year-old’s nose when he has a cold.
因为这玩艺儿看起来像是从感冒了两年的人的鼻子里流出来的东西
122.And this is produced by bacteria who are actually making more sulfuric acid, and living at pHs right around zero.
这其实是一种细菌的产物 它们可以产生硫酸 并且生活在pH为零左右的环境中
123.And so, this stuff is like battery acid.
所以那些“鼻涕”其实是些类似蓄电池酸液的东西
124.And yet, everything in this cave has adapted to it.
事实上这里所有的生物都已经适应了洞穴内的环境
125.In fact, there’s so much energy available for biology in this cave, that there’s actually a huge number of Cave Fish.
这里有大量的能量 满足各种生物的需求 甚至可以养活许多的洞穴鱼类
126.And the local Zoque Indians harvest this twice a year, as part of their Easter week celebration and Holy week celebration.
当地的索克人 每两年收割一次这种东西 作为复活节周和圣周庆祝活动的一部分
127.This is very unusual for caves.
这对于洞穴来说是非常常见的
128.In some of the other amazing caves that we work in — this is in Lechuguilla cave in New Mexico near Carlsbad, and this is one of the most famous caves in the world.
有一些令人惊奇的洞穴 比如这个在新墨西哥州卡尔斯巴德附近的墨西哥龙舌兰洞 是世界上最著名的洞穴之一
129.It’s 115 miles of mapped passage, it’s pristine, it has no natural opening and it’s a gigantic biological, geo-microbiological laboratory.
它有着115英里长的通道 保持着原始的面貌，没有天然洞口 是一个巨大的生物学及 地质微生物学实验室
130.In this cave, great areas are covered by this reddish material that you see here, and also these enormous crystals of selenite that you can see dangling down.
在这个洞穴中，一种淡红色的物质 覆盖了你可以看到的大片地域 你还可以在这里看到悬挂着的 亚硒酸盐的巨大晶体
131.This stuff is produced biologically.
这种东西是由生物合成的
132.This is the breakdown product of the bedrock, that organisms are busy munching their way through.
这是基岩分解后的产物 上面有生物在忙着大快朵颐
133.They take iron and manganese minerals within the bedrock and they oxidise them.
它们将铁和锰带入基岩 并将其氧化
134.And every time they do that, they get a tiny little packet of energy.
每当它们这样做的时候，都会得到一点点能量
135.And that tiny little packet of energy is what they use, then, to run their life processes.
这些能量就是它们所用来 维持自己生命活动的
136.Interestingly enough, they also do this with uranium and chromium, and various other toxic metals.
足够有趣的是，它们还会利用 铀和铬，以及其他一些毒性金属来完成相同过程
137.And so, the obvious avenue for bio-remediation comes from organisms like this.
像生物治理这样重要的 净化环境的手段 便需要依赖类似这样的生物来进行
138.These organisms we now bring into the lab, and you can see some of them growing on petri plates, and get them to reproduce the precise biominerals
我们现在将这些生物带进了实验室 将它们放在培养皿上 引导它们正确的进行生物矿物质的生产
139.that we find on the walls of these caves.
这些矿物就是在洞穴壁上发现的
140.So, these are signals that they leave in the rock record.
这些是它们留在岩石上的信号物质
141.Well, even in basalt surfaces in lava-tube caves, which are a by-product of volcanic activity, we find these walls totally covered,
即使是在由火山活动形成的 熔岩管洞穴内的玄武岩的表面 在很多情况下
142.in many cases, by these beautiful, glistening silver walls, or shiny pink or shiny red or shiny gold.
我们都可以发现 有漂亮、闪耀的银色、亮粉 亮红、两金色的物质覆盖
143.And these are mineral deposits that are also made by bacteria.
这些都是由细菌产生的 矿物质沉淀形成的
144.And you can see in these central images here, scanning electron micrographs of some of these guys — these are gardens of these bacteria.
你们可以看到中间的这些图片 这些是通过扫描电子显微得到的图像 这里简直就是细菌的后花园
145.One of the interesting things about these particular guys is that they’re in the actinomycetes and streptomycetes groups of the bacteria,
一件关于这些特别的小家伙们的有意思的事是 它们属于放线菌和链霉菌类 我们就是从它们身上得到
146.which is where we get most of our antibiotics.
大部分的抗生素的
147.The sub-surface of Earth contains a vast biodiversity.
地球的表面之下 存在着惊人的生物多样性
148.And these organisms, because they’re very separate from the surface, make a vast array of novel compounds.
由于这些生物 与表面隔离 所以它们产生的一系列化合物都是新型的
149.And so, the potential for exploiting this for pharmaceutical and industrial chemical uses is completely untapped, but probably exceeds most of the rest
可见利用这些化合物 来发展制药和化工业的潜力 还完全没有被开发出来 也许它们在这方面的潜力要超出
150.of the biodiversity of the planet.
地球上其他生物的总和
151.So, lava-tube caves– I’ve just told you about organisms that live here on this planet.
熔岩管洞穴– 我刚才已经为你们讲解的微生物所存在的地方
152.We know that on Mars and the Moon there are tons of these structures.
我们已经知道在火星和月球上 有很多这样的结构
153.We can see them.
我们可以看到它们
154.On the left you can see a lava tube forming at a recent eruption — Mount Etna in Sicily — and this is the way these tubes form.
在左边你可以看到熔岩管道正在形成 于西西里埃特纳火山最近的一次喷发中 这正是此类管道形成的途径
155.And when they hollow out, then they become habitats for organisms.
当它们变得中空时 正是生物栖息地形成之时
156.These are all over the planet Mars, and we’re busy cataloguing them now.
这些管道在火星随处可见 我们现在正忙着对它们进行编目
157.And so, there’s very interesting cave real estate on Mars, at least of that type.
所以火星上有，至少是这种的 有趣的洞穴房子
158.In order to access these sub-surface environments that we’re interested in, we’re very interested in developing the tools to do this.
为了能够得到 我们所感兴趣的类似的地下环境 我们非常乐意开发相关的工具
159.You know, it’s not easy to get into these caves.
要知道想要进入这些洞穴可不是易事
160.It requires crawling, climbing, rope-work, technical rope-work and many other complex human motions in order to access these.
需要进行爬行，攀爬 缆绳作业 以及其他一些复杂的活动 才可以到达这样的地方
161.We face the problem of, how can we do this robotically?
我们面临的问题是怎样才能利用机器人完成？
162.Why would we want to do it robotically?
我们为什么要让机器人来干这样的活呢？
163.Well, we’re going to be sending robotic missions to Mars long in advance of human missions.
那是因为 经过长期的载人火星任务后 我们将会将机器人送上火星
164.And then, secondly, getting back to that earlier point that I made about the preciousness of any life that we may find on Mars, we don’t want to contaminate it.
就像前面我所提到的 我们要珍惜我们在火星上可能发现的任何生命 而不去污染它们
165.And one of the best ways to study something without contaminating it is to have an intermediary.
最好的避免污染同时又对其进行研究的办法 就是借助机器人这样的中间人
166.And in this case, we’re imagining intermediary robotic devices that can actually do some of that front-end work for us, to protect any potential life that we find.
在这个案例中 我们假象出的机器人设备 可以为我们完成一些 前端的工作 从而可以保护潜在的生命
167.I’m not going to go through all of these projects now, but we’re involved in about half-a-dozen robotic development projects, in collaboration with a number of different groups.
我不会一一介绍所有这些项目 但是我们现在跟其他很多组织一起合作 参与在数个机器人的开发项目中
168.I want to talk specifically about the array that you see on the top.
我现在想向你们详细介绍 上面的这一系列
169.These are hopping microbot swarms.
这些是微型机器人群
170.I’m working on this with the Field and Space Robotics Laboratory and my friend Steve Dubowsky at MIT, and we have come up with the idea
我和我MIT的朋友史蒂夫·杜波夫斯基 同地面空间机器人实验室一道在做这方面的工作 我们有了一个想法
171.of having little, jumping bean-like robots that are propelled by artificial muscle, which is one of the Dubowsky Lab’s specialties —
去制造一种由人造肌肉驱动的 可跳跃的 豆型小机器人 人造肌肉或EPAMs
172.are the EPAMs, or artificial muscles.
都是杜波夫斯基实验室的专长
173.And these allow them to hop.
并且使这些机器人具有跳跃的能力
174.They behave with a swarm behavior, where they relate to each other, modeled after insect swarm behavior, and they could be made very numerous.
我们仿照蜂群的行为 来打造这些机器人 使它们 具备相应的蜂群行为 而且它们可以被无数地制造出来
175.And so, one can send a thousand of them, as you can see in this upper left-hand picture, a thousand of them could fit into the payload bay
就像你们从左上方这张图上看到的那样 我们可以将成千上万的这样的机器人送上火星 目前火星探测者使用的有效载重仓
176.that was used for one of the current MER Rovers.
可以装载一千个这样的机器人
177.And these little guys — you could lose many of them.
这些小家伙即使损失很多也无所谓
178.If you send a thousand of them, you could probably get rid of 90 percent of them and still have a mission.
由于数量巨大 使得失去其中的90%也依然可以完成任务
179.And so, that allows you the flexibility to go into very challenging terrain and actually make your way where you want to go.
这样就可以允许我们具有 进入富有挑战性地形的灵活性 并且正确地到达我们想要去的地方
180.Now, to wrap this up, I want to talk for two seconds about caves and the human expansion beyond Earth as a natural outgrowth of the work that we do in caves.
现在来总结一下，我想花几秒钟讲下 洞穴和人类在地球外的扩张之间的关系 作为一项我们在洞穴方面工作的成果
181.It occurred to us a number of years ago that caves have many properties that people have used and other organisms have used as habitat in the past.
若干年前我们就想到 过去，作为人类 及其它一些生物的栖息地 洞穴有很多特性
182.And perhaps it’s time we started to explore those, in the context of future Mars and the Moon exploration.
也许现在到了我们开始开发这些特性的时候了 特别是在未来火星和月球探索的背景下
183.So, we have just finished a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts Phase II study, looking at the irreducible set of technologies that you would need in order to
所以，我们刚刚建立了一个第二阶段先进概念研究NASA学会 着眼于不可或缺的技术 用于使
184.actually allow people to inhabit lava tubes on the Moon or Mars.
人类可以在月球或火星 的熔岩管内生活
185.It turns out to be a fairly simple and small list, and we have gone in the relatively primitive technology direction.
似乎这是项比较简单、工作量小的工作 我们已经在 相对原始的科技方向上有所进展
186.So, we’re talking about things like inflatable liners that can conform to the complex topological shape on the inside of a cave, foamed-in-place airlocks to deal with this complex topology,
我们说的是可充气的衬层 可与洞内复杂的拓扑形状 相吻合 现场发泡过度气压舱可以用来解决复杂的拓扑
187.various ways of getting breathing gases made from the intrinsic materials of these bodies.
宇航服的内部材料 可以采用多种方法取得供人呼吸的气体
188.And the future is there for us to use these lava-tube caves on Mars.
未来在等着我们去 利用这些火星上的熔岩洞
189.And right now we’re in caves, and we’re doing science and recreation, but I think in the future we’ll be using them for habitat and science on these other bodies.
马上我们就可以在洞穴里进行科学以及娱乐活动 但我认为在未来我们会 穿着宇航服来利用它们作为栖息和科学研究的地点
190.Now, my view of what the curent status of potential life on Mars is that it’s probably been on the planet, maybe one in two chances.
现在，我关于火星目前 潜在生命的状况的观点是 生命可能存在于那个星球 大概有1/2的机率
191.The question as to whether there is life on Mars that is related to life on Earth has now been very muddied, because we now know, from Mars meteorites that have made it to Earth,
火星上的生命 是否与地球上的生命有联系 现在还是很模糊的一个问题 因为现在我们从 到达地球的火星陨石得知
192.that there’s material that can be exchanged between those two planets.
这两个星球上的物质是可以进行交换的
193.One of the burning questions, of course, is if we go there and find life in the sub-surface, as I fully expect that we will, is that a second genesis of life?
一个急待解决的问题是 如果我们到了火星并在地下发现了生命 就想我所期望的那样 那么这会是生命的第二个起源么？
194.Did life start here and was it transported there?
生命是在地球发源 然后经传播到达火星的？
195.Did it start there and get transported here?
还是在那里起源然后传播到我们这里的？
196.This will be a fascinating puzzle as we go into the next half-century, and where I expect that we will have more and more Mars missions to answer these questions.
进入下半个世纪后这将成为一个具有吸引力的难题 我希望我们 会有越来越多的火星探索任务来回答这些问题
197.Thank you.
谢谢
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