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The early 1960s was an optimistic time for space engineering.
上世纪60年代早期正是航天工程欣欣向荣的时候。
With the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in full swing, cameras, animals, and humans were being launched into orbit.
那时候，美国和前苏联正如火如荼的进行太空竞赛，摄像头、动物甚至人都曾在那个时期进入过轨道。
And the world seemed headed for a space-faring future, where hundreds or even thousands of people would be living and working off-Earth.
那时候，全球似乎都在向太空飞行的未来大步进发着。这样的未来里，会有数百人乃至上千人在太空工作生活。
Getting that civilization into orbit, though, would require a lot of power.
不过，要实现这样的未来是需要很大的动力。
And, in 1963, a team led by engineer Bob Truax proposed a solution:
1963年，由工程师鲍勃牵头的团队提出了一个解决方案：
a supersized rocket capable of launching an entire space station in one go. They called it the Sea Dragon.
使用超大型火箭，该火箭能够一次性将一整个太空站发射升空，名叫海龙。
And while it never launched, it was well ahead of its time and it continues to inspire engineers today.
但实际上，海龙并未发射过，现在距离那一天还很遥远，所以海龙依然是今天很多工程师自我激励的目标。
When the Sea Dragon was proposed, the Soviets were leading the charge with rockets that were about 50 meters long and 3 meters wide.
海龙火箭的点子提出时，苏联正带头研发火箭——大约50米长，3米宽。
They could carry maximum payloads of about 5 metric tons.
火箭最多可以携带近5公吨的载荷。
The Sea Dragon would have been an absolute monster by comparison.
相比之下，海龙就是庞然大物了——
It would have been more than 150 meters tall and more than 22 meters wide, and it was designed to carry more than 500 metric tons into space.
150多米高，22多米宽，可以运载500共公吨的载荷进入太空。
And it would have been nearly 400 times more powerful than rockets of the time, and 10 times more powerful than the future Saturn V,
海龙比当时其他火箭强大近400倍，比在它之后的土星-5号运载火箭强大10倍。
the rocket that eventually took humans to the Moon.
土星-5号运载火箭就是那个曾载人登月的火箭。
And, as the name suggests, it was also intended to launch from the sea.
海龙，顾名思义，是要从海上发射。
No, not on a floating platform or anything. Like… directly from the water.
不过，并不是在浮式平台之类的东西上……而是直接从水上发射。
As impractical as that might sound, there are actually a few good reasons why a water launch was the best option.
虽然听起来有点不现实，但实际上这个选择所有多个充分理由的。
For one, it would have made transporting and assembling the rocket's huge components a lot easier, since a buoyant environment would support the rocket safely as it was being constructed.
一方面，这样的发射方式降低了运输和组装火箭大型组件的难度，因为火箭本身的设计就是在漂浮环境下更安全。
Then, there was all that thrust. At ignition, the Sea Dragon's powerful engines would have caused major damage to launch pads of the time, tearing apart concrete and melting metal.
其二，火箭本身冲力强大。一经点燃，海龙强大的引擎会给当时质量最好的发射台造成重大损害，混凝土和熔化的金属会四分五裂。
Water, on the other hand, just boils off or flows away.
其三，水会蒸发，也会流走。
Finally, after launch, the Sea Dragon's huge and scalding exhaust plume would be kept far away from populated areas.
其四，在发射后，海龙号会产生大量滚烫的排气尾流，在水上发射的话，排期尾流就不会影响到居民区了。
Of course, while a water launch offered a ton of benefits, it did create a few potential engineering challenges, too.
当然了，这种发射方式虽然有很多优点，但也会造成一些潜在的工程学问题。
For example, salt water is really good at corroding metal and messing up delicate electronic components.
比如，盐水腐蚀金属的能力很强，会损坏金贵的电子元件。
To get around that, engineers hoped to borrow techniques from submarines, which spend months at a time completely immersed in salt water.
为了解决这个问题，科学家们希望借用潜水艇的技术，毕竟潜水艇一次性在盐水下待几个月也没问题。
Their idea was to build the rocket with thick steel plates, insulation, or special paint to resist corrosion, and to place access panels for waterproofed electrical components above the waterline.
他们的想法是：用厚厚的钢板来建造海龙，或者用特殊的颜料来抵御盐水的腐蚀，同时还要把可以防止盐水腐蚀电子元件的检修门放在吃水线以上。
But aside from water protection, the rocket's design was really simple, a style that would become known as a “big dumb booster”.
不过，除了抵御盐水的腐蚀之外，火箭其他的设计都很简单，其采用的风格是“简单粗暴的大型火箭”风格。
Each of the Sea Dragon's two stages would store fuel and liquid oxygen in pressurized tanks.
海龙号有2个时期，这2个时期都会在增压箱储存燃料和液态氧。
At liftoff, simple valves would open, and the chemicals would mix, igniting on contact to produce a bunch of thrust that would carry the payload into space.
在发射后，设计简单的阀门会开启，然后化学物质混合在一起，接触后就会点燃，然后产生巨大推力，将载荷发射到太空中。
This design is less efficient than those found on the sophisticated Saturn V,
这个设计的效率比土星-5号运载火箭低一些，
but the Sea Dragon's huge size would have made up for that, making it considerably cheaper per kilogram of payload.
但海龙庞大的体型可以弥补这一点，使得运送每公斤载荷的成本大幅降低。
The simple design would have also helped ease its assembly and launch.
这样简单的设计也可以助力降低组装和发射方面的难度。
The main components would be built in dry docks and onshore facilities, then would be floated and assembled in a specially-made lagoon in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
主要组件会在干船坞和岸上设备中制造，然后会在佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角特别建造的泻湖上组装，组装过程中，都是处于漂浮状态的。
The rocket would then be filled with fuel and pressurized before being towed out to the launch point about 60 kilometers from the shore.
该火箭里面会填充满燃料，也会做好增压处理，然后才会将其拖出来，放在发射点。发射点距离岸边大概60公里远。
When it was time to launch, ballast sacks attached to the bottom would be filled with a heavy fluid, like muddy clay.
要发射的时候，其底部绑定的压舱物袋会填满一种密度很大的流体，比如淤泥质粘土。
Then, they would sink, and would pull the Sea Dragon upright.
然后，它们会下沉，并径直拽着海龙号下沉。
Once the engines were lit, water would be expelled from the first stage, and everything would work pretty much like any other rocket.
引擎启动之后，水波会推开，然后其他步骤跟正常的火箭发射很相似。
Its massive payload would be in low Earth orbit in a few minutes.
海龙巨大的载荷会在地球低轨道上飞行几分钟。
All this is really cool, but the Sea Dragon had one more innovation up its gigantic sleeves, one that would put it way ahead of its time:
虽然整个过程都很酷，但海龙还有一个优点是超越同时代其他火箭的：
The rocket was designed to be almost entirely reusable.
海龙的设计是几乎是可复用的。
After launch, bags on the ballast tanks could be inflated with air to float the tank back to the surface.
发射后，压载舱中的充气袋会让压载舱回到水面。
And both the rocket's first and second stages would be fitted with inflatable drag skirts to point them in the right direction and slow them down enough to survive a water landing with no damage.
海龙的第一阶段和第二阶段都会有充气袋拽着它们向正确的方向行进，也可以让海龙在水上降落时通过减速来避免伤害。
Each Sea Dragon would have been able to make more than 100 flights, and that reuse would have massively reduced the cost of getting to space.
海龙可以执行100多次飞行，而复用的设计可以大大降低去往太空的成本。
It really was a time of infectious optimism.
这可真是让人喜出望外的好消息。
Although the Sea Dragon was many times bigger than anything that had come before it, none of the engineering challenges seemed insurmountable.
虽然海龙比之前的火箭体型要大得多，但这些工程方面的挑战似乎都是无法克服的。
The team even got as far as a couple of prototypes to prove that a sea launch was possible.
工程团队甚至曾通过多个原型来证明海上发射是可行的。
Unfortunately, though, the whole program just kind of fizzled out after a while.
不幸的是，整个项目还是停滞了一段时间。
And while Truax was asked to develop other versions of his designs over the next few decades, nothing ever really got off the ground.
而虽然在那之后的几十年间也曾有人让鲍勃研发其他版本的海龙火箭，但并未有什么实际结果。
Or out of the water, I guess. What left the Sea Dragon adrift wasn't the engineering challenges, or even the cost, but the motivation.
至少研发结果还没有是从海上发射的，我是这么想的。让海龙火箭想法夭折的不是工程学方面的挑战，甚至不是成本，而是想做的意志。
Although some of the public may have looked forward to a space-faring future, NASA was more tightly focused on a single goal: getting a man on the Moon.
虽然有一些人会很向往太空飞行的未来，但美国宇航局（NASA）更关注一个目标：载人登月。
The Sea Dragon was an incredible tool, but not one that the space agency really needed at the time.
海龙火箭是很棒的工具，但海龙并不是现阶段NASA的刚需。
It was a workhorse for large scale settlement of space, at a time when pioneers were still making tentative steps to explore space.
海龙可以支持大规模定居于宇宙的运载工作，但现在我们还处于尝试探索宇宙的阶段。
Even today, we're not launching anything that needs the Sea Dragon's massive lifting power.
即便是今天，我们发射的任何物体还暂时都不需要海龙出马。
Still, the idea of a sea launch certainly isn't dead in the water.
不过，这并不代表从海上发射火箭的想法就彻底终结了。
Among the many private companies clamoring for space, several are proposing sending their rockets from the sea.
有很多私企都在为进发太空而努力，其中有几家企业正提出从海上发射火箭的想法。
One of the main benefits is that you don't need a designated launch pad which could become really useful as we start to launch more rockets and set our sights on a space-faring future once again.
有一个重要的好处是不需要指定发射台。这一点对我们很重要，因为我们现在正着手发射更多的火箭，并将目光再次放到了太空飞行的时代。
And if the day ever comes where we do want to launch a city into space… well, we have a design worth dusting off.
如果真有那么一天，我们想把整个城市发射到太空的话……海龙就是个现成的想法了。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Space and special thanks to Destin Sandlin over at Smarter Every Day for first telling our team about this sweet old rocket.
感谢收看本期的《太空科学秀》，尤其要感谢德斯坦在《每天更聪明》中为我们提供了海龙的源和历史的信息。
If you want to check out Destin's channel which, you should, it's amazing, you can go to youtube.com/smartereveryday.
如果您想看德斯坦的节目的话，我想说整个节目真的很棒，可以直接戳地址youtube.com/smartereveryday。
