VOA常速英语2019--17岁少女立志实现太空梦（在线收听）

Well, I first got interested in wanting to become an astronaut from watching a cartoon called the Backyardigans when I was around three years old. And basically on the show, the characters went on these imaginary missions to Mars. I wanted to be like one of their friends and go with them, and I started asking my dad all these questions, and basically just kept asking for videos, pictures and books and anything I could find about space and Mars.

我第一次有想成为宇航员想法的时候，是在看一个名为《花园小子》的动画片，那时候我大概3岁。当时演的大概是动画中的人物要完成去往火星的虚拟人物。我当时好想成为他们的朋友，跟他们一起。于是，我开始问父亲一些问题，基本上就是问父亲要各种相关视频、图像、书籍等任何与太空和火星有关的资料。

I’m just of that nature that I believe that parents should support their children in whatever their dreams are. It doesn’t matter if it changes a thousand times. It doesn’t matter how crazy it is, because it doesn’t get any crazier than what my kid is dreaming. And you know, there’s a great potential that she’s probably going to leave this planet. Because you have to look at this. You say, is she too young to be doing some of this stuff? You know, every kid out there, if they’re wanting to do whatever career it is, you know, there’s people out there’s been getting pilot licenses and doing flying lessons. I mean, there’s eight and nine year-olds doing this. So, I mean, to be 17 and getting a pilot’s license I don’t think is that young at all. As far as her going off into space, like I said, space is a very dangerous thing. All it wants to do is kill you. So, you know, I worry about that, but on the other side of that, she has educated me to show how important it is for us to leave this planet for the survival of the human species, and so it’s bigger than the two of us, and so I just have to let her go and I have to let her live her dream.

我就是这样的父亲，而且我认为父母应该支持孩子的所有梦想。不管这梦想是否有过各种改变，不管改变有多疯狂，也不可能有孩子的梦想疯狂。而且我女儿确实很有可能实现太空梦。因为我们要看实际情况。有人会觉得她还太小，做不了这样的事儿。但每个孩子，只要他们想从事某个职业，就总有人能获得引航员执照，就有人上飞行课。我想说，八九岁的孩子，做成这件事的也有。所以，我女儿已经17岁了，也获得了引航员执照，所以我觉得她并不小。但她进入太空这件事，如我曾说过的那样，是一件危险的事情。毕竟太空不适宜人类生存。所以我还是很担心的，但从另一方面来看，女儿也教会了我去往太空的重要性，这是为了人类的生存。这不只是我们父女两人的事情，所以我无法阻止她，我要让她实现自己的梦想。

Not really. We don’t have like a ‘space school.’ The weird thing, you know, about being an astronaut and things like that, is you kind of have to have a job to be an astronaut as a job.

其实并没有，我们没有“太空学校”这样的地方。奇怪的是：在成为宇航员这件事情上，宇航员不一定要成为一种职业。

You know, as you’ve seen, I enjoy going out and speaking to girls and inspiring them to follow their own goals, and also, you know, advocating for, you know, the mission to Mars in general. It is reasonable for us to go, just because we have the technologies to get there. We have all the components, and in 15 years, it’s 2033, which is the projected year for a mission to Mars. I hope to be a part of that mission and going off to Mars and working in the field of astrobiology and hopefully finding something interesting on Mars.

大家可能已经看到了，我很喜欢走出去，跟女孩子们聊天，并激励她们追寻自己的目标，也宣扬飞往火星的重要性。人类飞往火星不是不可能，因为我们具备相关的技术。我们有硬件实力。15年后就是2033年了，也就是飞往火星的既定时间。我希望参加这次飞行，去往火星，专攻天体生物学，并在火星上发现有趣的事情。