本期原文选自The Economist 2016-8-27的Leaders板块Brave new worlds，释义来自牛津高阶七版、剑桥高阶学习词典英汉双解第3版、有道词典等网络资源。如果您也在学习The Economist，欢迎订阅我的文集The Economist，一起学习交流。
Brave new worlds
New discoveries, intelligent devices and irrepressible【1】dreamers are once again making space exciting
【1】狂热的，抑制不住的，难以驯服的
It may turn out to be a bare and barren rock【2】. The fact that liquid water could be flowing across the surface of the planet just discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri【3】, the nearest star to the sun, does not mean that any actually is【4】—nor for that matter【5】that it has an atmosphere. The fact that water and air, if present, could make this new world habitable does not mean that it is, in fact, a home to alien life.
【2】此处采用了修辞手法“头韵”（Alliteration，也称作head rhyme或者initial rhyme），是英语语音的一种常见修辞手法。首辅音一致的两个或两个以上的单词同时出现在短语、句子或相邻句子的情况都可成为Alliteration。经常阅读经济学人的文章，会发现尤其标题经常采用Alliteration的修辞手法。
【3】比邻星又称毗邻星，是半人马座α三合星的第三颗星，离太阳最近的一颗恒星（4.22光年）。Proxima本身也可以指比邻星，centaur是古希腊神话中的半人半马怪物，Centaurus是半人马座，拥有两颗一等大星（first magnitude stars），半人马座A星（Alpha Centauri）和半人马座B星（Beta Centauri）以及半人马座欧米伽球状星团（the globular cluster Omega Centauri）。
【4】此处省略了一些词语，结合前面的分句可知，完整的表述应该是any liquid water actually is flowing across the surface of the planet……
【5】就此而言，在这方面
But it might be.
What is exciting about this new world is not what is known—which, so far, is almost nothing (see page 67). It is what is unknown and the possibilities it may contain. It is the chance that【6】there is life beneath that turbulent red sun, and that humans might be able to recognise it from 40 trillion kilometres away. In the immense distances of space that is close enough to mean that, some day, perhaps, someone might send probes to visit it and in so doing glimpse【7】a totally different form of life. In the thrill of【8】such possibilities sits all that is most promising about the exploration of space.
【6】可能
【7】轻轻一瞥
【8】兴奋，激动
All our yesterdays
Next year will mark the 60th anniversary of the first satellite, Sputnik. The intervening decades have brought wonders. Men have looked back on【9】the beauty of the Earth from the bright-lit Moon—and returned safely home. The satellites of America's Global Positioning System (GPS) have created a world in which no one need ever be lost again—changing the human experience of place rather as the wristwatch changed the experience of time. Robots have trundled【10】across the plains of Mars and swooped【11】through the rings of Saturn. The Hubble space telescope has revealed that wherever you look, if you look hard enough you will find galaxies scattered like grains of sand across the deep【12】.
【9】回望
【10】慢慢滚动
【11】俯冲
【12】海洋
Even so, space has of late【13】become a bit dull. No man has ventured beyond low Earth orbit in more than four decades (no woman has done so ever). Astronauts and cosmonauts commute to an International Space Station that has little purpose beyond providing a destination for their capsules, whose design would have been familiar in the 1960s. All the solar system's planets have been visited by probes. The hard graft【14】of teasing out【15】their secrets now offers less immediate spectacle.
【13】近来
【14】辛苦工作
【15】探究
The use of space is integral to all sorts of things, including the working of armies, air forces and navies, but its role in GPS—or, for that matter, Google Maps—barely merits a mention【16】. Some companies make money from putting satellites into orbit, and not just the kind that do things for governments. But there is an undeniable bathos【17】to the fact that the biggest business in arealm once synonymous with human transcendence is providing viewers on Earthwith umpty-seven channels of satellite TV.
【16】barely merits a mention几乎不值得一提
【17】荒谬之变
Now that is changing. The technological progress that has put supercomputers into the pockets of half the world has made it possible do a lot more in orbit with much smaller spacecraft. A generation of entrepreneurs forged in Silicon Valley— and backed by some of its venture capitalists【18】—are launching highly capable newdevices ranging in size from shoe boxes to fridges and flying them inconstellations of dozens or hundreds (see Technology Quarterly). Such machinesare vastly more capable, kilo for kilo, than their predecessors and cheaper, toboot. They are making space interesting again.
【18】风险资本家
The first new businesses are based on something easily returned from space to Earth: data. Although companies such as DigitalGlobe, in Denver, have been selling satellite images for decades, most of their customers have been spooks【19】and soldiers. Today's entrepreneurs at companies like Planet, Black- Sky and Spire are hoping to sell not just snapshots of places that brass hats【20】want to peer at【21】. They are offering comprehensive and constantly updated global data sets. Ever better machine- learning programs can mine these for information on crops, shipping, traffic, wildlife or the environment that will be used by everyone from eco-warriors to hedge funds. Add the potential of small, smart satellites in their hundreds or even thousands to connect the billions of people too poor and remote to have yet been reached by the phone revolution, or the trillions of devices in the "internet of things【22】", and this new space age will bring more than ever to the world below.
【19】特工
【20】要人
【21】仔细看
【22】物联网，就是物物相连的互联网，被视为互联网的应用扩展,其目的是实现物与物、物与人，所有的物品与网络的连接。
And that is just the start. Elon Musk, the founder of both Tesla, a car company, and SpaceX, a rocket company, wants to found a colony on Mars and will soon be building spacecraft that can go there. Jeff Bezos, of Amazon, is following a steady and somewhat secretive path that may one day see the skies filled with automated factories and asteroid【23】mines. Yuri Milner, an investor who got intoFacebook early, is spending $100m on the most serious attempt yet to detect civilisations around other stars. He is also funding a programme aimed atstudying planets like the one around Proxima Centauri with probes travelling ata fifth the speed of light—spacecraft so tiny as to make today's shoe-box satellites look like battleships.
【23】小行星
New life, and new civilisations Even if they fail, these attempts to reinvigorate space will be instructive and thrilling. Just as on Earth, states will always have a role as, among other things, protectors of their national satellite infrastructure and as the enforcers of the laws they have put in place to govern the commercial exploitation of space. But in the years ahead, as the cost of hardware plummets【24】and as systems on Earth learn to make better use of data, the growing number of star-struck【25】entrepreneurs promise to relieve governmentsof the burden of space-age dreams with a torrent of innovation.
【24】速降
【25】追星的
There is no objective need for people to colonise space or for them to look at planets in other solar systems in order to answer questions about life's place in the universe. People can survive without such journeys or knowledge. Some, though, see the possibilities, stand in awe【26】, and start making plans. They may notsucceed. The planets may turn out to be barren rocks. Infinite space, in the end, might be just a nutshell's worth of emptiness.
【26】敬畏
But, then again, it might not.
【知识点汇总】
1. 修辞手法：Alliteration 头韵，a bare and barren rock。
2. 关于太空的词语：Proxima Centauri比邻星，Mars火星，Saturn土星，constellation星座，planet行星，asteroid小行星，galaxy星系，solar system太阳系，orbit轨道，probe探测器，astronaut/cosmonaut宇航员。
3. 重复成分可以省略，使句子简洁。
4. 表示适用于另一种情形的递进关系，可以采用for that matter。
5. 表达可能性时，除了possibility, probability，还可以用chance。
6. 文中有两个表示“看”的词：peer和glimpse，前者是凝视、窥视，后者只是轻轻一瞥。
7. thrill表示惊险、兴奋，thriller是惊险小说。
8. “海洋”的英文，除了ocean, sea，还可以是the deep。
9. “最近”的英文，除了recently，还可以是of late。
10. 辛苦的工作，除了hard work，还可以是graft。
11. “回忆”的英文，除了recall，还可以是look back on。
12. “俯冲、向下猛冲”，英文只需一个单词swoop。
13. 带轮子的东西缓慢移动，英文是trundle。
14. 探究秘密 tease out a secret。
15. 几乎不值得一提 barely merit a mention。
16. 荒谬的突然转变 bathos。
17. 风险资本 venture capital，风险资本家 venture capitalist。
18. spook 除了“鬼”，还有间谋、特工的意思。
19. 物联网 internet of things。
20. 暴跌、速降 plummet（名词是铅锤的意思）。
21. 追星的 star-struck。
22. 对…敬畏 stand/be in awe of sb/sth。
23. 狂热的梦想家 irrepressible dreamer。
24. brass 除了黄铜，还可以是要人。
注：本文仅供学习交流之用，不代表作者观点。