特朗普急着想上月球，美國人表示很不理解

Why Trump Wants to Go to the Moon So Badly

爲啥特朗普這麼想上月球呢？

The administration has vowed to return Americans to the lunar surface in 2024 “by any means necessary.”

美國政府立誓要讓美國人“通過任何必要手段”在2024年登上月球表面。

The point is, the NASA astronauts left the moon in 1972, and no one has been back since.

關鍵是美國航空航天局的宇航員自1972年離開月球后，無人再次登月。

When the Apollo program ended, NASA turned its attention toward other parts of the cosmos. It built space stations and shuttles, designed powerful floating telescopes, and sent machines to fly past some planets and moons and to land on others.

阿波羅項目結束時，美國航空航天局就把注意力轉投到宇宙其他地方。建空間站、建航天飛機、設計強大的懸浮望遠鏡，還發送機器穿梭在星球和月亮間並最終在其他地方着陸。

Today the moon, Earth’s closest companion, seems almost distant in comparison.

今天，地球最親密的夥伴——月亮，看起來似乎已成往事。

But Donald Trump’s administration wants to go back, and soon.

但是唐納德·特朗普政府想要儘快回到月球時代。

“At the direction of the president of the United States, it is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years,” Vice President Mike Pence said this week.

本週，美國副總統邁克·彭斯說：“總統的指示就是我國政府的公開政策，美國將於下一個五年讓宇航員重返月球。”

Pence made the announcement in Huntsville, Alabama, the city that built the rocket that lofted Apollo astronauts toward the moon.

彭斯在亞拉巴馬州亨茨維爾說了這番話，亨茨維爾曾經建造了阿波羅火箭，將宇航員送上月球。

In the most significant space-policy speech of the Trump administration so far, the vice president said the United States would establish a permanent base on the moon that would someday help Americans mount a mission to Mars.

在特朗普政府最重要的航空政策演講中，副總統曾表示美國將在月球上建永久基地，未來或許能夠協助美國登上火星。

（翻譯：阿忙）