Elon Musk¹, the billionaire founder² of SpaceX, has outlined a bold plan for interplanetary travel that could take humans to Mars as soon as 2025, as part of a broader effort to form a human colony on the red planet.

身家亿万的SpaceX创始人埃隆•马斯克(Elon Musk)向世人勾勒出了一个大胆的行星际旅行计划，或最早于2025年将人类送上火星。该计划是在这个红色行星上建立人类殖民地的更宏大努力的组成部分。

In a presentation on Tuesday, Mr Musk outlined for the first time the technical details of how SpaceX planned to operate missions to Mars, and said the company would need more funding to get there.

在周二做的一个报告中，马斯克首次罗列出了SpaceX计划如何运作火星之旅的技术细节，并表示公司需要更多资金以实现这一目标。

The billionaire head of Tesla and SpaceX also emphasised his personal commitment to helping³ humans pursue life on other planets.

特斯拉(Tesla)和SpaceX的这位掌门人还强调称，他个人致力于帮助人类在其他行星上生活。

“The main reason I personally am accumulating assets is in order to fund this,” Mr Musk said. He wants to use his money “to make the biggest contribution I can to making life multi-planetary”, he added.

马斯克说道：“我个人积累财富的主要原因，就是为了给这一努力筹措资金。”他还表示，希望用自己的钱“为多行星生活做出我能做的最大贡献”。

SpaceX’s plan for Mars travel includes building a reusable spaceship that could travel between Earth and Mars and would take roughly three months to get there. The craft would be launched into orbit with empty fuel tanks, then be fuelled up with methane⁴ by a refuelling ship before it took off for Mars.

SpaceX火星旅行计划包括建造一艘可重复使用的飞船。该飞船可在地球和火星之间旅行，路上花费的时间大约为三个月。该飞船会带着空燃料箱发射入轨，再由一艘加油飞船加注甲烷后出发前往火星。

These ships would both be launched with a reusable booster rocket that is similar to SpaceX’s current Falcon⁵ 9 rocket, but bigger.

这两艘飞船都会用一枚可重复使用的助推火箭发射，该火箭与SpaceX现有的猎鹰9号(Falcon 9)火箭类似，但要更大一些。

However, the timing⁶ of the Mars announcement is unusual, coming less than a month after a SpaceX rocket exploded during a routine refuelling and just three months after a separate SpaceX rocket blew up in flight.

不过，马斯克选择在此刻公布这一火星旅行计划可谓不同寻常。就在不到一个月前，SpaceX一枚火箭在一次例行的燃料加注过程中爆炸。而就在三个月前，另一枚SpaceX火箭在飞行中爆炸。

SpaceX plans to send its small Dragon 2 spacecraft⁷ on test missions to Mars during the 2018 and 2020 pairing windows, when Earth and Mars are close.

SpaceX计划在2018年和2020年这两个配对窗口期发射其小型的“龙二”(Dragon 2)飞船，执行登陆火星的测试任务。在这两个配对窗口期，地球与火星之间的距离比较近。

A new spaceship that can carry between 100 and 200 passengers would be developed within four years, Mr Musk said. The spaceship, tentatively named “Heart of Gold”, could make its first test run to Mars in 2022 and then take passengers there during the 2024-25 pairing window.

马斯克表示，会在四年的时间里开发一种能搭载100到200名乘客的新型飞船。这种飞船暂时被命名为“黄金之心”(Heart of Gold)，可能会在2022年启动首次赴火星的试运行，接下来会在2024-25年的配对窗口期携带乘客前往火星。

Developing this interplanetary travel system could cost about $10bn, Mr Musk said, and SpaceX planned to invest more in this area.

马斯克表示，开发该行星际旅行系统的成本可能会在100亿美元左右，而且SpaceX计划在这一领域投入更多资金。

Despite the high cost, Mr Musk said he hoped to make travel to Mars as affordable⁸ as possible, estimating that tickets could one day cost as little as $200,000.

他说，尽管火星之旅成本高昂，但他希望能令这一旅程变得尽可能的廉价，估计有朝一日票价可低至20万美元一张。

He declined to answer questions about whether he himself would be on the first trip to Mars, however, pointing out that the chances of death were very high and that he wanted to see his children grow up.

不过，他拒绝回答关于他自己是否会参加首次火星之旅的问题，指出在这一旅程中丧命的可能性非常高、而他希望看着自己的子女长大成人。