Ars Live recap: When are the big rockets NASA desperately needs going to be ready?
Ars Live recap: When are the big rockets NASA desperately needs going to be ready?
Ars Live 回顾：NASA 急需的大型火箭何时才能准备就绪？
This week Ars hosted a live discussion with two space industry experts about the aftermath of the catastrophic explosion of the New Glenn rocket in late May. Along with Ars Technica Space Editor Eric Berger; the director of research at Quilty Space, Caleb Henry; and the host of the Main Engine Cut Off podcast, Anthony Colangelo, spoke about various topics.
本周，Ars 举办了一场直播讨论，邀请两位航天工业专家探讨了“新格伦”（New Glenn）火箭在 5 月下旬发生灾难性爆炸后的后续影响。Ars Technica 太空编辑 Eric Berger 与 Quilty Space 研究总监 Caleb Henry 以及“Main Engine Cut Off”播客主持人 Anthony Colangelo 一同讨论了多个议题。
Chief among them was the implications of this failure for NASA’s attempt to land humans on the Moon for the Artemis IV mission. Blue Origin and SpaceX are both building landers to support this goal and the rockets to deliver them to the Moon.
其中最核心的话题是，此次失败对 NASA 为“阿尔忒弥斯 4 号”（Artemis IV）任务进行载人登月尝试所带来的影响。蓝色起源（Blue Origin）和 SpaceX 都在建造着陆器以支持这一目标，并研发将着陆器送往月球的火箭。
During the conversation, Berger reported that the current Blue Origin “architecture” for a human mission would require four launches of a new variant of the New Glenn rocket, known as 9×4, because it has nine first stage engines, and four upper stage engines. This is a more powerful version than the “7×2” variant that exploded a little more than a month ago.
在对话中，Berger 提到，目前蓝色起源用于载人任务的“架构”需要四次发射一种名为“9×4”的新型新格伦火箭，因为它拥有 9 台一级发动机和 4 台二级发动机。这比一个多月前爆炸的“7×2”型号动力更强。
Blue Origin has not set a target date for the 9×4 rocket’s debut, but some sources have indicated the company is targeting late 2027 or early 2028. How realistic is this, especially after the destruction of Launch Complex 36A? Caleb Henry said he was not optimistic.
蓝色起源尚未确定 9×4 火箭的首飞目标日期，但有消息称该公司瞄准的是 2027 年底或 2028 年初。考虑到 36A 发射台的损毁，这现实吗？Caleb Henry 表示他并不乐观。
“I have not seen anyone put out a date for a new rocket, and actually hit it. Going back in the archives, when Blue Origin shifted New Glenn from a three-stage vehicle to a two-stage vehicle, and made a couple other changes in mid-2018 time period, those were stated as being needed to accelerate the path to launch. They had yet to make a first flight, and they were doing these architectural changes so that they could speed up that timeline. I think the 9×4 is really to enable them to do new missions. I think adding engines makes it more complicated, not less.”
“我还没见过有谁能给出新火箭的日期并如期实现的。回顾历史，当蓝色起源在 2018 年中期将新格伦从三级火箭改为二级火箭并进行其他调整时，他们声称这是为了加快发射进度。当时他们尚未进行首次飞行，进行这些架构调整是为了缩短时间表。我认为 9×4 实际上是为了让他们能够执行新任务。我认为增加发动机只会让事情变得更复杂，而不是更简单。”
“I don’t have a sense of exactly where they’ll land relative to what they’ve put out there, but I think 1.5 is usually a good rule, so a year and a half at least.” Colangelo said it would not surprise him if the development of the 9×4 variant of New Glenn slipped into the 2030s.
“我无法准确判断他们最终会在什么时间点完成，但通常‘1.5 倍’是一个不错的经验法则，所以至少要推迟一年半。”Colangelo 则表示，如果新格伦 9×4 型号的研发推迟到 2030 年代，他一点也不会感到惊讶。
So if that’s the case, how is NASA going to get its astronauts to the Moon this decade, if that’s to happen at all? “I don’t really see a way out, other than you’re just all in on Starship for the next four or five years. When you think about this, you have proven ability for SpaceX to scale up launch cadence quite quickly. They have plans to go fly out of Florida with Starship, they’ve got two pads in Texas. They have infrastructure scale now.”
那么，如果情况确实如此，NASA 该如何在本十年内将宇航员送上月球（如果这还能实现的话）？“除了在未来四五年内全力押注星舰（Starship）之外，我真的没看到其他出路。考虑到 SpaceX 已经证明了其快速提升发射频率的能力。他们计划在佛罗里达州发射星舰，在德克萨斯州也有两个发射台。他们现在已经具备了基础设施规模。”
“It is not something that we need to watch them build, and then make use of. So I do think this should be a clarifying moment to just go all in on Starship for the first landing and not try to over-complicate the next two years. Well, if we put this lander on that, and we make new facilities in this launch pad to be able to service this vehicle, then we could fly this thing and meet up with that thing in orbit. That’s very quickly getting to a point where it’s more complex than a company that can already fly 160 times a year flying a new vehicle tens of times a year. That is a more believable pathway to me.”
“这不需要我们看着他们从零开始建设并投入使用。所以我认为这应该是一个明确的时刻：在首次着陆任务上全力押注星舰，不要试图让未来两年变得过于复杂。如果说‘我们要把这个着陆器放在那个火箭上，并在发射台建造新设施来维护它，然后我们就能发射它并在轨道上对接’，这很快就会变得比一家每年能发射 160 次的公司去运营一种新载具要复杂得多。对我来说，全力押注星舰是一条更可信的路径。”
Toward the end of the conversation, we also had a rapid-fire section where the panelists answered a number of questions from viewers watching the event live.
在对话接近尾声时，我们还进行了一个快问快答环节，嘉宾们回答了直播观众提出的多个问题。