特朗普急着想上月球，美国人表示很不理解

Why Trump Wants to Go to the Moon So Badly

为啥特朗普这么想上月球呢？

The administration has vowed to return Americans to the lunar surface in 2024 “by any means necessary.”

美国政府立誓要让美国人“通过任何必要手段”在2024年登上月球表面。

The point is, the NASA astronauts left the moon in 1972, and no one has been back since.

关键是美国航空航天局的宇航员自1972年离开月球后，无人再次登月。

When the Apollo program ended, NASA turned its attention toward other parts of the cosmos. It built space stations and shuttles, designed powerful floating telescopes, and sent machines to fly past some planets and moons and to land on others.

阿波罗项目结束时，美国航空航天局就把注意力转投到宇宙其他地方。建空间站、建航天飞机、设计强大的悬浮望远镜，还发送机器穿梭在星球和月亮间并最终在其他地方着陆。

Today the moon, Earth’s closest companion, seems almost distant in comparison.

今天，地球最亲密的伙伴——月亮，看起来似乎已成往事。

But Donald Trump’s administration wants to go back, and soon.

但是唐纳德·特朗普政府想要尽快回到月球时代。

“At the direction of the president of the United States, it is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years,” Vice President Mike Pence said this week.

本周，美国副总统迈克·彭斯说：“总统的指示就是我国政府的公开政策，美国将于下一个五年让宇航员重返月球。”

Pence made the announcement in Huntsville, Alabama, the city that built the rocket that lofted Apollo astronauts toward the moon.

彭斯在亚拉巴马州亨茨维尔说了这番话，亨茨维尔曾经建造了阿波罗火箭，将宇航员送上月球。

In the most significant space-policy speech of the Trump administration so far, the vice president said the United States would establish a permanent base on the moon that would someday help Americans mount a mission to Mars.

在特朗普政府最重要的航空政策演讲中，副总统曾表示美国将在月球上建永久基地，未来或许能够协助美国登上火星。

（翻译：阿忙）