Exploring Mars Triumph or disaster?

探索火星：勝利還是災(zāi)難？

THAT space flight is as much show business as science was confirmed on the evening of October 19th, when members of the ExoMars team put on the bravest of faces for a broadcast from their mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, about the arrival of the project’s craft at Mars. ExoMars is a joint endeavour by Europe’s and Russia’s space agencies. If science were its only criterion, team members would have been cock-a-hoop. Their main research vehicle, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), had successfully entered almost precisely its designated orbit around Mars, and looked well placed to do its job of mapping concentrations of the minor chemical components of the Martian atmosphere, which is composed mostly of carbon dioxide. This is an important task, for one such component is methane—and that may be a sign the planet harbours life.

當(dāng)十月十九日晚上斗忌，ExoMars 團(tuán)隊(duì)的成員帶著無(wú)畏的表情在其位于德國(guó)達(dá)姆施塔特的任務(wù)控制中心發(fā)布其火星飛船的時(shí)候质礼，宇宙飛行不僅僅是科學(xué)同樣也是生意的說(shuō)法得到了證實(shí)。ExoMars 是歐洲和俄羅斯航天機(jī)構(gòu)的一個(gè)嘗試织阳。如果科學(xué)是其唯一的評(píng)價(jià)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的話眶蕉，那么團(tuán)隊(duì)成員可以說(shuō)是喜氣洋洋的。他們的主要研究工具唧躲，微量氣體探測(cè)器（TGO）成功地進(jìn)入預(yù)計(jì)的環(huán)火星軌道造挽，預(yù)期可以專注于探測(cè)火星大氣中除了主要的二氧化碳之外的的微量組成部分。這是一個(gè)重要的任務(wù)弄痹，因?yàn)槠渲幸粋€(gè)微量組成部分是甲烷饭入，而這可能意味著火星上的生命存在。

Instead, there were the flat, controlled voices of those trying to come to terms with disappointment, while hoping against hope that their worst fears are wrong. The reason was that the other part of the mission, a cone-shaped landing craft called Schiaparelli, had abruptly gone silent on its way to the surface. Schiaparelli’s only scientific payload was a small weather station that would have run out of battery in four days. The craft’s real purpose was to test descent and landing technologies. And test them it did, apparently to destruction. But a brave little lander is always going to trump a clunky workhorse satellite in the public imagination—so, unless Schiaparelli does start talking again (which, at the time The Economist went to press, it had not), what is actually a pretty good success will seem a disappointment.

相反肛真，當(dāng)期望自身對(duì)于最糟糕的結(jié)果的逾期是錯(cuò)誤的同時(shí)谐丢，他們內(nèi)部任然有單調(diào)、謹(jǐn)慎的聲音表示他們已經(jīng)能夠接受失敗蚓让。原因之一在于任務(wù)的一個(gè)組成部分庇谆，一個(gè)被稱為Schiaparelli 圓錐體著陸器在在著陸過(guò)程中意外地失去聯(lián)系。Schiaparelli 的唯一科學(xué)設(shè)備就是一個(gè)電量只可使用四天的小型天氣預(yù)報(bào)器凭疮。飛船的真實(shí)目的是為了驗(yàn)證下降和著陸技術(shù)饭耳。這個(gè)技術(shù)的驗(yàn)證看起來(lái)是失敗了。不過(guò)在大眾想象中一個(gè)小小的勇敢著陸器總是能夠比笨重的衛(wèi)星獲取更大的關(guān)注执解，所以除非重新和 Schiaparelli 取得聯(lián)系（在 The Economist 發(fā)稿時(shí)仍然沒(méi)有） 寞肖，這次事實(shí)上頗為完美的成功計(jì)劃可能被認(rèn)為是一個(gè)失敗。