國家地理:為什么火箭愛好者都愿意來這片沙漠(2)
One engineer installed a GoPro camera on his rocket; he showed Ormerod pictures it had captured high in the sky. Others get creative -- one rocket is shaped like a bottle of Jagermeister. From the control center comes a countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The rockets blast off, then gently float back to Earth under parachutes -- if they don't malfunction.
一位工程師在火箭上安裝了GoPro相機，并向攝影師奧默羅德展示了它在高空拍攝的照片。另一些人也推出自己的創(chuàng)意，比如形狀像酒瓶的火箭。從控制中心傳來倒計時的聲音，火箭發(fā)射后，如果沒有發(fā)生故障，就會在降落傘的幫助下輕輕飄回地面。
Ormerod was into astronauts and science fiction as a kid but never imagined being able to travel beyond Earth. "When only a tiny percentage of people can go to space, what does everyone else who dreams of it do?" he wondered. Then, at a rocket launch in his native Scotland, he found the answer: They live their interstellar dreams on the ground. Soon he was following scientists to a Mars simulation in Utah and aurora hunters to the otherworldly coast of Iceland. Next he'll visit crop circle enthusiasts in Russia and astronomers in South Africa. "They're ordinary people," Ormerod says, "but they're blasting into outer space."
奧默羅德小時候很喜歡宇航員和科幻小說，但從沒想過自己能飛出地球。他想知道：“當只有很小一部分人可以進入太空時，其他所有夢想進入太空的人又會做什么？”然后，在家鄉(xiāng)蘇格蘭的一次火箭發(fā)射中，奧默羅德找到了答案：他們在地面上實現(xiàn)了他們的星際夢想。不久后，奧默羅德跟隨科學(xué)家前往猶他州進行火星模擬實驗，并跟隨奧羅拉獵人前往超凡脫俗的冰島海岸。接下來，他將訪問俄羅斯麥田怪圈愛好者和南非天文學(xué)家。奧默羅德說：“他們都是普通人，但他們正沖向外太空?！?/p>
