To follow Elon Musk’s Twitter feed on Tuesday as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket blasted off from its launch pad was to enter into the zany, geeky, mettlesome, and inspirational world of the South African-born tech entrepreneur.私人太空公司SpaceX的猎鹰重型火箭(Falcon Heavy)周二从发射台升空时，注目埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)在Twitter上发的帖子就像转入了这位出生于南非的科技企业家怪异、“极客范”、战列舰而又鼓舞人心的世界。All through the day SpaceX’s founder kept his 19m followers updated on the flight profile of the company’s huge rocket and the delays to the countdown caused by excessive high-altitude winds.这位SpaceX的创始人一整天都在向他的1900万粉丝动态主播该公司这枚巨型火箭的升空情况，以及因高空风速过大造成的升空倒计时延后。Then, soon after the 27-engine rocket roared into space, he tweeted near-surreal footage of one of his red Tesla Roadster cars with a dummy astronaut strapped onboard orbiting the Earth. This brazen cross-promotion for the car company Mr Musk also founded was variously interpreted as one of the most expensive, or cheapest, mass advertising campaigns in history.然后，在这枚配备27台引擎的火箭轰鸣着转入太空后旋即，他在Twitter上公布了一段超现实的画面：他的一辆红色特斯拉跑车Roadster绕着地球飞行中，车里面坐着一具身着宇航服的假人。

此番对某种程度由马斯克创办的汽车公司的赤裸裸的交叉广告宣传，被评价为历史上最便宜、或最省的大型广告活动之一。“We’re doing OK for a bunch of monkeys. Humanity rocks!” Mr Musk tweeted.“猴子名门的我们做到得不俗。人类棒极了！”马斯克放了一条这样的帖子。Adopting a more restrained tone in response to President Donald Trump, who was quick to send a congratulatory tweet, Mr Musk replied: “Thank you on behalf of SpaceX. An exciting future lies ahead!”美国总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)迅速之后发推文表示祝贺，马斯克恢复特朗普时用于了更加镇抚的语气：“代表SpaceX感谢您。

一个令人兴奋的未来就在眼前!”Behind all the quirky bravado stands a stunning technological achievement.所有这些奇特的造势背后是一项难以置信的科技成就。The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket to be launched since the Saturn V programme took astronauts to the Moon. The dramatic and safe return of two of the Falcon Heavy’s three boosters was also a noteworthy feat, promising to cut the cost of future launches.猎鹰重型火箭是自“土星5号”(Saturn V)将宇航员送来上月球以来升空的发动机最强劲的火箭。安全性重复使用猎鹰重型火箭三枚助推器中的两枚，也是一项有一点注目的成就，这意味著未来升空成本未来将会减少。

The success opens the way for a manned mission around the Moon by two paying astronauts, although SpaceX appears to be tiptoeing away from its original timetable that this would take place before the end of the year. It also marks a significant step towards Mr Musk’s ultimate ambition: to land on Mars. That mission, though, will depend on the success of SpaceX’s next rocket design, known with frat-boy humour as the BFR (or Big F***ing Rocket), due to be launched in the mid-2020s.此次顺利为下一步将两名旅客送来上月球的载人任务修筑了道路，尽管SpaceX或许正在背离原订于今年底之前构建这一目标的时间表。这也标志着向马斯克的终极目标——登岸火星迈进了最重要一步。不过，这一任务将各不相同SpaceX被戏称为BFR(Big Fucking Rocket)的下一款火箭的顺利。

The US space establishment was initially wary of tech billionaires such as Mr Musk and the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, when they first declared their ambitions to run their own private space programmes. But Nasa quickly came to admire the highly innovative and hard-charging attitude that these entrepreneurs have brought to the business. Such has been Nasa’s faith in Mr Musk that it has even granted SpaceX a licence to operate from the hallowed ground of Launchpad 39A, the site from which Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins blasted off to the Moon in 1969.当马斯克、亚马逊(Amazon)创始人杰夫·贝索斯(Jeff Bezos)等科技亿万富翁首次宣告积极开展私人太空项目的雄心时，美国太空当局最初对他们心存警觉。但美国国家航空航天局(NASA)迅速就开始赞扬这些企业家为太空事业带给的高度创意和进取心十足的精神。NASA对马斯克如此有信心，甚至给与SpaceX许可证，容许其用于具备历史意义的肯尼迪航天中心39A发射台(Launchpad 39A)，即尼尔·阿姆斯特朗(Neil Armstrong)、巴兹·奥尔德林(Buzz Aldrin)和迈克尔·科林斯(Michael Collins) 1969年登月时的发射台。So many people have now bought into Mr Musk’s extraordinary vision that it might be sensible to apply a discount to his accomplishments. Certainly, the $57bn stock market value of Tesla Motors, his lossmaking car company that delivered just over 100,000 vehicles last year, would appear to defy financial gravity. And the failed deployment of a spy satellite following its launch on a Falcon 9 rocket on January 7 also highlighted the periodic fallibility of the SpaceX programme, although the company has said its rocket functioned perfectly.现在有这么多的人为马斯克的非凡愿景所赞叹，或许给他的成就安打优惠是理智的。

当然，马斯克旗下去年仅有交付给10多万辆汽车且正处于亏损中的特斯拉(Tesla Motors) 570亿美元的市值，或许是违背金融规律。1月7日，猎鹰9号火箭配备的一颗间谍卫星部署告终也凸显SpaceX项目不时会经常出现问题，尽管该公司称之为其火箭展现出极致。

It used to be said of Steve Jobs that Apple’s monomaniacal founder conjured up his own “reality distortion field”, in whose thrall people suspended their disbelief. Much the same can be said of Mr Musk.过去人们经常说道苹果公司有些偏执狂的创始人史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)建构了自己的“现实扭力场”(reality distortion field)，陷身其中的人会暂停批评。某种程度的众说纷纭也可限于于马斯克。

But whatever the occasional distortions, the underlying reality behind both entrepreneurs’ achievements is impressive and indisputable.但不管不定造成了什么变形，两位企业家成就背后的深层现实是令人印象深刻印象和无可争议的。

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