Artemis III Scientist Shares What to Expect From NASA’s Next Lunar Mission

本文为原文前 6,000 字符的节选翻译，完整内容请查看原文。

Artemis III Scientist Shares What to Expect From NASA’s Next Lunar Mission

多年来，美国国家航空航天局（NASA）一直希望将人类送回月球表面，而“阿尔忒弥斯 3 号”（Artemis III）原本就是旨在实现这一壮举的任务。但现在情况已不再如此。在去年 4 月“阿尔忒弥斯 2 号”成功完成绕月飞行后，该计划的时间表进行了修订。根据最新公告，下一次任务将推迟到 2028 年，虽然新计划确实不如登月任务那样引人注目，但它们绝非可有可无。

In 2027, NASA plans to test in Earth orbit whether the Orion capsule can safely rendezvous and operate with commercial lunar landing systems from SpaceX and Blue Origin before attempting those same maneuvers around the moon. WIRED en Español spoke with Barbara Cohen, a scientist on the Artemis III project, to better understand this upcoming mission—the conversation ranging from the role humans still play in the face of increasingly capable robots and sensors to what we can learn about the solar system’s violent past from traces preserved on the moon.

2027 年，NASA 计划在地球轨道上测试“猎户座”飞船是否能与 SpaceX 和蓝色起源公司的商业月球着陆系统安全对接并协同运行，然后再尝试在月球周围进行同样的机动。《连线》杂志西班牙语版采访了“阿尔忒弥斯 3 号”项目的科学家芭芭拉·科恩（Barbara Cohen），以深入了解这项即将到来的任务。对话内容涵盖了在机器人和传感器能力日益增强的背景下人类所扮演的角色，以及我们如何通过月球上保存的痕迹来了解太阳系暴力的过去。

Members of the Artemis II lunar science team, from left to right, Ryan Ewing and Barbara Cohen, react to the crew’s observations during the lunar flyby on April 6, 2026. Photograph: Luna Posadas Nava/NASA. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

“阿尔忒弥斯 2 号”月球科学团队成员（从左至右）瑞安·尤因（Ryan Ewing）和芭芭拉·科恩（Barbara Cohen）对 2026 年 4 月 6 日绕月飞行期间机组人员的观察结果做出反应。摄影：Luna Posadas Nava/NASA。本次采访为篇幅和清晰度进行了编辑。

JORGE GARAY: What should people expect from Artemis III, and why does this mission matter even if it won’t land astronauts on the moon? BARBARA COHEN: Artemis III is an Earth-orbiting mission. That’s the one that’s coming up next. We will send the Orion capsule to Earth’s orbit with the people in it. Blue Origin and SpaceX are the companies that are making the lunar landers, so each one of those companies will make a test article. It won’t be the full lunar lander, but those companies will send their version of the test article into Earth’s orbit to meet up with Orion. This is to make sure that Orion can meet with the lunar landers, so that when they do go to lunar orbit, they can do that safely.

豪尔赫·加雷（JORGE GARAY）：人们应该对“阿尔忒弥斯 3 号”有何期待？即使它不会让宇航员登陆月球，这项任务为何依然重要？芭芭拉·科恩（BARBARA COHEN）：“阿尔忒弥斯 3 号”是一项地球轨道任务。这就是接下来的任务。我们将把载人的“猎户座”飞船送入地球轨道。蓝色起源和 SpaceX 是制造月球着陆器的公司，因此它们每家都会制造一个测试件。它不会是完整的月球着陆器，但这些公司会将各自版本的测试件送入地球轨道与“猎户座”对接。这是为了确保“猎户座”能够与月球着陆器对接，以便当它们真正进入月球轨道时，能够安全地完成操作。

Where does science fit into the Artemis program, and what have you learned so far about how astronauts can contribute scientifically? The Artemis missions, just to be clear, are not science missions. They’re exploration for a lot of different reasons. We do that for technology development. We do that for inspiration. And we try to get the science that we can from the opportunity. And so we still work really hard to identify unique science opportunities that exist because the mission exists.

科学在“阿尔忒弥斯”计划中处于什么位置？到目前为止，您对宇航员如何做出科学贡献有何了解？需要明确的是，“阿尔忒弥斯”任务并非科学任务。它们是出于多种原因的探索。我们这样做是为了技术开发，为了激励人心。我们努力从这些机会中获取尽可能多的科学成果。因此，我们仍然非常努力地去发掘因这些任务存在而产生的独特科学机遇。

One of the things on Artemis III we’re doing is like a dress rehearsal for bringing samples back from the moon. When we land on the moon and start to bring samples back, those samples change as soon as you take them out of their natural environment. We try to make sure that they change as little as possible, but they are going to change. You have to bring them back and put them into curation so that scientists can study them. We want to understand every step along the way: What could be changing the samples, how the samples could be reacting, especially to the environment around them.

我们在“阿尔忒弥斯 3 号”上所做的事情之一，就像是带回月球样本的预演。当我们登陆月球并开始带回样本时，这些样本一旦脱离自然环境就会发生变化。我们尽量确保它们的变化尽可能小，但它们终究会改变。你必须把它们带回来并进行妥善保存，以便科学家进行研究。我们希望了解过程中的每一步：什么因素可能导致样本发生变化，样本如何反应，特别是对周围环境的反应。

So we’ll have our crew deploy these witness materials—pieces of aluminum foil, pieces of Teflon, maybe pieces of ceramic. They’re very clean surfaces, very small pieces, maybe the size of a quarter or a nickel. And the team will be opening those up and exposing them to the crew cabin throughout their flight. That’ll give us a feel for how the humans change the environment around them.

因此，我们将让机组人员部署这些“见证材料”——铝箔片、特氟龙片，或许还有陶瓷片。它们是非常干净的表面，非常小的碎片，可能只有 25 美分或 5 美分硬币那么大。团队将在整个飞行过程中打开它们，使其暴露在乘员舱内。这将让我们了解人类如何改变他们周围的环境。

With the capabilities of probes and other robotic tools today, what is the purpose of sending human astronauts into space? If you just want to take pictures, you do that with robotic assets. Robots can take pictures. They do that all the time. We have lots of pictures in the area. We also have, on the International Space Station, a way for us to ask, “Please take a picture of this. Please take a picture of that.” That’s not what we did with Artemis II, and that’s not what we’re trying to do with Artemis III or Artemis IV, V, VI.

凭借当今探测器和其他机器人工具的能力，派遣人类宇航员进入太空的目的是什么？如果你只是想拍照，你可以使用机器人资产。机器人可以拍照，它们一直在这样做。我们在这个区域有很多照片。在国际空间站上，我们也有办法要求：“请拍一张这个的照片，请拍一张那个的照片。”但这不是我们在“阿尔忒弥斯 2 号”上所做的，也不是我们在“阿尔忒弥斯 3 号”、“4 号”、“5 号”或“6 号”上试图做的事情。

With the Artemis missions, we’re trying to use the humans to their best capability, and what the humans are really good at is seeing a wide scene, zooming in on details very naturally, and then trying to interpret what they’re seeing and take the next step. We don’t know everything about the moon. To learn more, we need to literally go on the surface and figure out what’s there and where to go next. So some of this is trying to train—not just the crew onboard—but the flight directors and the science team and the engineers. We all need to work together to enable humans to do what they do best.

在“阿尔忒弥斯”任务中，我们试图发挥人类的最佳能力。人类真正擅长的是观察广阔的场景，非常自然地放大细节，然后尝试解读他们所看到的内容并采取下一步行动。我们对月球并非了如指掌。为了了解更多，我们需要真正踏上月球表面，弄清楚那里有什么以及下一步该去哪里。因此，部分工作是在进行培训——不仅是针对机组人员，还包括飞行主管、科学团队和工程师。我们需要共同努力，使人类能够发挥他们最擅长的能力。

We also give the crew science prompts. We say, “What do you think is happening in this scene? There’s something like a storm or an algal bloom or a fire. What do you see? How do you see the scene changing? What do you think that means? What do you think is causing that change? What do you think is going to happen next? If you could do anything, what would you do next?” That helps us understand what they’re looking at, which is not just taking pictures. It’s making observations, making understanding, making inferences with their brains. That’s what humans are really good at. That’s what we’ll be asking them to do.

我们还会给机组人员提供科学提示。我们会问：“你认为这个场景中发生了什么？比如有风暴、藻类爆发或火灾。你看到了什么？你如何看待场景的变化？你认为这意味着什么？你认为是什么导致了这种变化？你认为接下来会发生什么？如果你能做任何事，你会做什么？”这有助于我们了解他们正在观察什么，这不仅仅是拍照，而是通过大脑进行观察、理解和推断。这正是人类非常擅长的，也是我们将要求他们去做的事情。

From a science point of view, we learned a lot about how crew really wants to use their powers of observation, and how we should participate in the observations and train them in the science that we want them to do. We also had the ability to include science directly in flight. On Artemis II, we had our science officer talk directly to crew. That was a new thing that we’ll be carrying forward to Artemis III.

从科学的角度来看，我们学到了很多关于机组人员如何真正利用他们的观察力，以及我们应该如何参与观察并对他们进行我们希望他们完成的科学任务的培训。我们还有能力将科学研究直接纳入飞行中。在“阿尔忒弥斯 2 号”任务中，我们的科学官直接与机组人员进行了交流。这是一项我们将延续到“阿尔忒弥斯 3 号”的新举措。