《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第87期:軌道速度(3)

But 8 km/s is blisteringly fast. When youlook at the sky near sunset, you can sometimes see the ISS go past . . . andthen, 90 minutes later, see it go past again. In those 90 minutes, it's circledthe entire world.

但每秒8千米的速度是非常非常非常快的。如果你在日落時仰望天空，有時候你會看到國際空間站從你眼前飛過……然後過了90分鐘，它又出現了。也就是說國際空間站在這90分鐘時間裏繞地球飛行了整整一圈。

The ISS moves so quickly that if you fireda rifle bullet from one end of a football field, the International SpaceStation could cross the length of the field before the bullet traveled 10yards.

如果你想和國際空間站比飛行速度的話，假設你在足球場的一端射出一顆來複槍子彈，當國際空間站跑到足球場的另一端時，子彈纔剛飛了不到10米。

Let's imagine what it would look like ifyou were speed-walking across the Earth's surface at 8 km/s.

想象一下你以每秒8千米的速度在地球表面競走會是什麼樣子。

To get a better sense of the pace at whichyou're traveling, let's use the beat of a song to mark the passage of ose you started playing the 1988 song by The Proclaimers, “I'm Gonna Be(500 Miles).” That song is about 131.9 beats per minute, so imagine that withevery beat of the song, you move forward more than 2 miles.

爲了讓你有更直觀的感受，我們不妨以歌曲的節拍來記錄時間。假設你在開始時播放了1998年普羅克萊門兄弟演唱的I'm Gonna Be（500 Miles）（我要走五百英里），這首歌每分鐘大約有131.9拍，所以歌曲每播放一個節拍，你就能走上2英里多。

In the time it took to sing the first lineof the chorus, you could walk from the Statue of Liberty all the way to theBronx.

當你唱完歌詞的第一行時，你就已經從布朗克斯（紐約最北端）走到了自由女神像那兒了。

You'd be moving at about 15 subway stopsper minute.

相當於你每秒能跑15個地鐵站。

It would take you about two lines of thechorus (16 beats of the song) to cross the English Channel between London andFrance.

當你唱完第二行（16拍）時，你就能夠跨越英吉利海峽了。

The song's length leads to an odd interval between the start and the end of “I'm Gonna Be”is 3 minutesand 30 seconds, and the ISS is moving at 7.66 km/s.

而這裏有一個很神奇的巧合。歌曲一共有3分30秒長，而國際空間站的速度是每秒7.66千米。

This means that if an astronaut on the ISSlistens to “I'm Gonna Be,”in the time between the first beat of the song and the final lines. . .

這意味着如果國際空間站上的一位宇航員在聽這首歌，那麼在整首歌唱到最後一行時……

. . . they will have traveled just aboutexactly 1000 miles.

……他剛好跨越了約1000英里的距離。

1 Specifically, low Earth orbit, which iswhere the International Space Station is and where shuttles could go.

1．這裏是指國際空間站或者航天飛機所在的近地軌道。

2 The X-15 reached 100 km on two occasions,both when flown by Joe Walker.

2．X-15曾兩次飛到太空，皆由約瑟夫•沃爾克駕駛。

3 Make sure to remember to steer up and notdown, or you will have a bad time.

3．記得是往上拉機頭，而不是往下，否則你就要悲劇了。

4 It's a little less if you're in thehigher region of low Earth orbit.

4．如果是在近地軌道較高處的話這個數字會小一些。