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It happens all the time in Star Trek and other science fiction shows:
如下画面经常在《星际迷航》等科幻场景里出现：
At the press of a button, a starship is able to whiz right past the speed of light, off to explore strange new worlds.
只需一按，星际飞船就能瞬间超过光速，然后出去探索新世界。
Of course, thanks to the laws of physics, real life isn't quite as fun, because nothing can go faster than the speed of light.
当然了，由于现实世界有物理定律的存在，所以并不会这么炫酷，因为没有什么能比光速更快。
Even Voyager 1, the fastest thing we've ever sent out of the solar system, would take more than 17,000 years to travel one measly light-year.
即便是旅行者1号这个人类送出系外的最快的物体，也要用1.7万年才能走1光年而已。
Still, that has not stopped engineers from dreaming of ways to explore other worlds.
虽然如此，工程师想要探索其他世界的梦想还是没有因此而熄灭。
Many ideas have come and gone, but one of the most ambitious and influential was Project Daedalus.
人们提出了许多的想法，但其中最有抱负、最有影响力的要属代达罗斯计划。
It was thought up in the 1970s, and it proposed a way we could get to a star almost six light-years away... in less than 50 years.
首次提出这个计划是在上世纪70年代，该计划指出了一个方法，让我们可以在不到50年的时间里抵达近6光年远的恒星。
Project Daedalus was conceived by the British Interplanetary Society, a group founded in the 1930s, long before we'd launched anything into space.
代达罗斯计划是由英国星际学会设想出来的。该学会成立于上世纪30年代，那时候，人类还未曾向太空发射过任何物体。
Their first project was designing a concept for a moon rocket, and later, they also studied how we could use German missiles for human spaceflight.
他们的第一个项目是为月球火箭设计一个概念。随后，他们还研究了如何通过德国制造的导弹来实现载人航天。
Admittedly, they didn't by any stretch have the resources to build these spacecraft themselves.
无可否认的是，他们确实没有资源来自己构造宇宙飞船。
Instead, it was a group of academics and engineers trying to study, on paper, the feasibility of such a mission using present or near-future technology.
毕竟，该学会是由学者和工程师组成的，他们努力的方向是通过论文来研究用现有的或者不久后的技术是否能实现这样的载人航天任务。
Maybe another group would someday be interested in the building part.
或许以后会有其他的组织对实操感兴趣。
Still, if nothing else, this team did have ambition.
不过，不管怎么样，他们是怀有抱负的一群人。
They began Project Daedalus in 1973 and published their final plan only five years later.
1973年，他们开始着手代达罗斯计划，并在短短5年后发布了最终的方案。
Their goal was to get a robotic, unscrewed spaceship to around 12% the speed of light, or about 36,000 kilometers per second, and send it to study a target called Barnard's Star.
他们的目标是实现一个无人太空船，达到光速的近12%，也就是3.6万km/s。然后将该飞船发射到巴纳德星上对其进行研究。
This star is about six light-years away, so it isn't the closest one to Earth.
这颗恒星距离地球大概6光年远，所以不是距离地球最近的恒星。
But at the time, astronomers thought it had something no other nearby star did: planets.
但天文学家当时看中它是因为它具备附近其他恒星不具备的一点：有行星环绕。
Specifically, two of them, which had supposedly been discovered in the 1960s.
准确来说，是2颗行星。这2颗行星是上世纪60年代发现的。
After accelerating to its max speed, Daedalus would be able to get there in only 50 years, well within the span of a human lifetime.
在达到最大速度后，该飞船可以用仅仅50年的时间来抵达这颗恒星，而50年是小于人类平均寿命的。
Instead of relying on future inventions, the group wanted to use only contemporary or near future technology to propel their spacecraft.
该学会没有依靠未来的发明来构思，他们希望通过同时代或不久后的科技来为这艘飞船提供动力。
So instead of waiting around for something like an antimatter engine, they settled on nuclear explosions.
所以，他们并没有干等反物质发动机这样的发明出现，而是将目光锁定在了核爆炸上。
As you do. Their proposed design was a sort of odd, bubbly-looking thing, essentially, a rocket with a belt of round nukes in the middle.
大家应该能想到，他们的设计有点奇怪——中间有个带子，带子上是圆形的核弹。
The idea was to create a series of small nuclear explosions to build up momentum for the craft.
他们的想法是通过一系列小型核爆炸来为宇宙飞船提供动能。
Each explosion would accelerate it more and more over the course of about five years, until it reached those incredible speeds.
在为期近5年的时间里，每次爆炸都会为飞船提供更快的速度，一直到飞船达到极速。
Although this nuclear stuff was an extreme idea, it wasn't an especially new one.
虽然这个有关核的想法听起来很疯狂，但这并不是个新点子。
Across the pond, NASA had long been pursuing nuclear propulsion technology, including with Project Orion, in the 1950s and ‘60s.
美国宇航局长期以来一直在研究核爆炸的技术，包括他们上世纪五六十年代推出的猎户座计划。
But that program was shut down by nuclear treaties.
但那个计划因多个核协议的原因而告停。
Thankfully, Daedalus only proposed using coin-sized pellets instead of full-on nuclear bombs like NASA, so their engine might not have been a problem if anyone ever wanted to build this ship.
好在代达罗斯计划只是提出用硬币大小的弹丸，而不是像美国宇航局一样采用真实的核弹，所以在实操中，发动机可能不会是一个需要解决的问题。
But that didn't mean Daedalus didn't have other issues.
但这并不意味着代达罗斯计划就不存在其他问题了。
For one, even though it used nukes instead of heavy, conventional fuel, the ship alone would still have weighed about 2400 metric tons, which is 18 times bigger than the largest payload ever carried to orbit.
一方面，虽然代达罗斯计划的飞船采用的是小子弹，不是传统重型燃料，但飞船本身就有近2400公吨的重量了。这个重量是史上进入轨道最大载荷的18倍。
Also, as the engineers soon realized, conventional nukes wouldn't even be enough:
除此之外，工程师很快就发现，传统子弹不足以提供全部的动能：
In order to have enough fuel and power, they'd actually need fusion.
要实现足够的燃料和动能，还需要聚变的作用。
This process involves synthesizing two elements into a heavier one, then utilizing the excess energy.
聚变的过程是将两个元素合成为一个质量更大的元素，然后对产生的过高能量加以利用。
But we don't even have efficient fusion technology today.
但我们现在并没有成熟的聚变技术。
So, like antimatter engines, this tech was part of the “not coming any time soon” category.
所以，这项技术跟反物质发动机一样，也属于那种“不会很快实现的技术”
Even if the Daedalus team had managed to get all that sorted out, though, there would have been even more issues once the mission was underway.
即便代达罗斯计划的研究小组能通过努力解决动能不足的问题，在计划实施阶段还会有更多的问题出现。
Like, the farther the craft got from Earth, the harder it would be to communicate with it.
比如，飞船离地球越远，就越难进行交互。
And any repairs would be almost impossible without fairly advanced artificial intelligence, which definitely wasn't a thing in the 1970s.
但要想进行修复，就需要十分先进的人工智能技术，但这在上世纪70年代还没出现。
Oh, and, one small detail, the news also broke partway through the Daedalus study that Barnard's Star didn't actually have planets.
哦对了，还有个小细节：后来代达罗斯计划的研究小组得知，巴纳德星并没有卫星。
These were false signals created by routine telescope maintenance.
之前的错误判断是因为望远镜例行维护时发出了错误的信号。
So, the odds of ever making this mission a reality kind of plummeted.
所以，实施该计划也就成了不可能的事情。
It became a dream for the far future and, eventually, faded from the popular imagination.
所以，该计划也就成了很久后才能实现的梦想，渐渐淡出了火热猜想的行列。
Of course this doesn't mean we're done exploring the galaxy, though.
当然了，这并不意味着我们会停止探索太阳系。
These days, a mission like Project Daedalus might actually be close to possible. Or at least, closer.
最近，一个与代达罗斯计划相仿的任务可能实现，或者说离实现更近一步了。
Some groups are still looking into nuclear propulsion, including NASA, which has been exploring how to use nuclear rockets in the solar system without violating any treaties.
有一些团体还在研究核动力推进的问题，比如美国宇航局。所谓核动力推进，就是探索如何在太阳系内使用核火箭，同时保证不违反任何核协议。
And work on spaceship repair and robots has really improved, too.
有关飞船修复和机器人的工作也有了实质性的进展。
In 2015, the University of Michigan created a self-healing material that could plug small holes in spacecraft.
2015年，密歇根大学发明了一种可以自我修复的材料，可以塞住宇宙飞船上细小的洞口。
And the International Space Station has also tested out a few robots that could take care of onboard repairs.
此外，国际空间站也通过了一些机器人的测试。通过测试的机器人可以对飞船进行修复。
Admittedly, there's still a long way to go, but visiting other stars does feel less impossible now.
无可否认，我们还有很长的路要走，但到访其他的星球在现在看来不再是那么遥不可及。
And if nothing else, engineers are also exploring tons of alternative options to explore the galaxy.
就算没有上述进展，工程师至少还探索了探索太阳系的许多备选途径。
Like, there's one called Breakthrough Starshot, which would use hundreds of simple, laser-powered probes to reach our neighboring star, Alpha Centauri, within 20 years.
比如，有一种途径就是突破摄星。该计划会用到上百种由激光提供动力的简单探测器来抵达临近的恒星半人马座阿尔法星，时间还不到20年。
But whatever happens, our thoughts are clearly aimed at the stars.
但无论怎样，我们的目标都清晰地锁定在宇宙里的其他恒星上。
Now we just need to figure out a way to get to them, whether it's nukes, lasers, or something even weirder.
现在，我们只需要想出抵达这些恒星的方法，无论是子弹、激光还是其他方法。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Space!
感谢收看本期的《太空科学秀》！
Along with Project Daedalus, there are plenty of other missions that never made it off the ground.
除了代达罗斯计划外，还有很多计划没能落地实施。
You can learn more about some of them in our episode with Reid about three history-changing missions.
要了解更多有关这些计划的信息的话，我们有一集是里德主持的，那一集里讲到了3个改变历史的计划。
