2022年11月15日 VOA慢速英語(yǔ)：尋找舊戰(zhàn)機(jī)的潛水員找到了航天飛機(jī)的一部分

 

Divers looking for the wreckage of a World War II airplane last spring actually found part of the destroyed space shuttle Challenger.
去年春天尋找二戰(zhàn)飛機(jī)殘骸的潛水員實(shí)際上發(fā)現(xiàn)了被毀壞的挑戰(zhàn)者號(hào)航天飛機(jī)的一部分。
 
A large piece of the spacecraft was discovered at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. The site is not far from the U.S. space agency NASA's Cape Canaveral launch area. NASA confirmed the discovery on November 10.
A航天器的一大塊是在佛羅里達(dá)海岸附近的大西洋底部被發(fā)現(xiàn)的。該地點(diǎn)距離美國(guó)航天局NASA的卡納維拉爾角發(fā)射區(qū)不遠(yuǎn)。 NASA 于 11 月 10 日證實(shí)了這一發(fā)現(xiàn)。
 
The piece is from the space shuttle that exploded shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral on January 28, 1986. The last time anyone found part of the Challenger was in 1996.
這件作品來(lái)自 1986 年 1 月 28 日從卡納維拉爾角升空后不久爆炸的航天飛機(jī)。上一次有人發(fā)現(xiàn)挑戰(zhàn)者的一部分是在 1996 年。
 
Seven people died when the Challenger exploded. Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher from New Hampshire, was part of the crew. An investigation of the accident found a faulty part in the right rocket booster caused the Challenger explosion.
挑戰(zhàn)者爆炸時(shí)有七人死亡。來(lái)自新罕布什爾州的學(xué)校教師克里斯塔·麥考利夫 (Christa McAuliffe) 是劇組成員之一。事故調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，右側(cè)火箭助推器存在故障，導(dǎo)致挑戰(zhàn)者號(hào)爆炸。
 
Michael Ciannilli is a NASA official who confirmed that the newly discovered piece was real.
邁克爾·錢(qián)尼利 (Michael Ciannilli) 是美國(guó)國(guó)家航空航天局 (NASA) 的一名官員，他證實(shí)新發(fā)現(xiàn)的碎片是真實(shí)的。
 
He told The Associated Press when he first saw video of the space shuttle piece, "my heart skipped a beat … and it brought me right back to 1986 … and what we all went through as a nation."
當(dāng)他第一次看到航天飛機(jī)碎片的視頻時(shí)，他告訴美聯(lián)社，“我的心跳了一下……它帶來(lái)了我馬上回到 1986 年……以及我們作為一個(gè)國(guó)家所經(jīng)歷的一切。”
 
Ciannilli said the piece appears to be at least 4.5 meters long and 4.5 meters wide. It could be larger, though, because some of it was covered by sand. He said he thinks the piece may have been from the underside, or belly, of the shuttle.
Ciannilli 說(shuō)這件作品看起來(lái)至少有 4.5 米長(zhǎng)和 4.5 米寬。不過(guò)，它可能更大，因?yàn)槠渲幸恍┍簧匙痈采w了。他說(shuō)他認(rèn)為這塊碎片可能來(lái)自航天飛機(jī)的底部或腹部。
 
NASA said it is still thinking about whether to launch a recovery operation to get the shuttle piece or to leave it in the ocean. "We want to make sure … we do the right thing for the legacy of the crew," Ciannilli said.
美國(guó)宇航局表示，它仍在考慮是否啟動(dòng)回收行動(dòng)以獲取航天飛機(jī)或?qū)⑵淞粼诤Ｑ笾小?“我們希望確保……我們?yōu)闄C(jī)組人員的遺產(chǎn)做正確的事情，”Ciannilli 說(shuō)。
 
About 47 percent of the Challenger shuttle has been recovered since the accident. Much of it is buried in unused sites at Cape Canaveral. Some of it is shown at a NASA visitor's center, next to a piece from the Columbia space shuttle. Columbia broke apart on its way back to Earth over Texas in 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board.
自事故發(fā)生以來(lái)，挑戰(zhàn)者號(hào)航天飛機(jī)的大約 47% 已被回收。其中大部分被埋在卡納維拉爾角的未使用地點(diǎn)。其中一些展示在美國(guó)宇航局游客中心，旁邊是哥倫比亞航天飛機(jī)的一件作品。哥倫比亞號(hào)于 2003 年在德克薩斯州返回地球的途中解體，機(jī)上七名宇航員全部遇難。