(单词翻译:单击)
Space missions don't always go quite as planned.
太空任务有时候会偏离于计划。
And by the time something goes wrong, your spacecraft is a hundred million kilometers from home, too far away to dash out and repair it.
而一旦中途出现什么问题的时候，太空飞船离地球已经十万八千里了，我们没法冲到太空外去做补救。
Consequently, space science can get...improvisational.
因此，有时候，太空科学不会墨守成规。
If a tool is no longer capable of carrying out its original purpose, maybe it can still do something.
如果某个工具无法达成一开始的目的，那么或许这个工具能用于其他用途。
Your adjustable wrench's threads bound up? Now you've got a normal wrench!
可调节的扳手线缠绕在一起了是吗？恭喜你，你获得了一把正常的扳手！
Oh, it's stuck closed entirely? Well, then you've got a very oddly-shaped hammer!
里面也完全锁死了是吗？那恭喜你，你获得了一把造型奇特的锤子！
The folks at NASA have had to apply this school of thought to far more sophisticated equipment, and sometimes it works out really well for them.
美国宇航局（NASA）的工作人员不得不将这种思路用于更加复杂的设备上。有时候，这招还挺管用。
Here are a few such examples. The Hubble Space Telescope has been serviced by astronauts five times since 1990.
举几个例子吧。自1990年以来，宇航员就曾5次自己动手修理哈勃太空望远镜。
But it's the exception. Because it's in low Earth orbit, we've actually been able to go there and fix it.
不过，这是例外情况，因为哈勃现在近地轨道上。我们去近地轨道修补还是能实现的。
Other telescopes are less lucky.
但其他的望远镜就没这么幸运了。
The Kepler space telescope was meant to find exoplanets by continuously watching faraway stars for transit events:
开普勒望远镜的任务是搜寻系外行星，搜寻的方法是持续观测遥远的恒星是否经过：
a slight dimming of a star's brightness for a specific amount of time, indicating that a planet is passing in front of it.
如果恒星在某个特定的时间段里亮度变弱，那就说明有行星从它前面经过。
Through this method, Kepler aimed to identify as many Earth-sized exoplanets as possible, while looking at a patch of about 150,000 stars.
开普勒的任务是通过这个方法来尽可能多地发现跟地球大小相近的系外行星，同时开普勒还要持续关注近15万刻恒星。
It had four gyroscopic stabilizers, one stabilizer for each three-dimensional axis, plus a spare if one of them should fail.
开普勒有4个陀螺稳定器，每个三维轴搭配一个稳定器，此外还有一个备份的稳定器作为替补。
These were to protect the probe from being pushed around too much by pressure from the solar wind.
它们的存在是为了保护开普勒受到太阳风压强的作用而被迫移动。
In 2013, four years into the mission, two of the stabilizers had failed.
2013年，该任务已经执行了4年。这4年间，有2个稳定器因故障而无法使用。
Which made it too hard to keep the telescope steady, so NASA put it in sleep mode and went back to the drawing board.
这就使得开普勒很难保持稳定，因此NASA将这2个稳定器设置为睡眠模式，回到了制图板上。
After a few months of hard work, scientists realized they could use the solar wind instead of fighting it, basically bracing the spacecraft against it and using the other two gyros to keep it in place.
在经历了几个月的攻坚克难之后，科学家发现他们可以借力打力，即：借助太阳风的作用力以及另外2个稳定器的作用力来保持开普勒的稳定。
It would mean they'd need to re-align the telescope every 80 days as it orbited the sun and slowly shifted its angle relative to the solar wind.
采用这种方法就意味着科学家每隔80天要重新调整开普勒的位置，因为开普勒是围绕太阳环行的，因此开普勒与太阳风之间的相对角度也会发生变化。
Which meant pointing it at a new field of stars every few months, instead of studying the same patch continuously.
这样的话，每隔几个月，开普勒观测的恒星群就会有所变化，而不是始终盯着某一片儿恒星群。
But these limited campaigns returned fantastic results and buckets of exoplanets for researchers here at home.
虽然执行计划只是做了微调，但结果十分惊艳，让地球上的科学家了解了很多系外行星。
And this isn't the only telescope NASA has had to save.
但NASA迫不得已要出手相助的还不止这一个望远镜。
Spitzer is an infrared space telescope designed to operate slightly above absolute zero to see distant objects that optical telescopes can't, such as low temperature and dim objects far away.
斯必泽太空望远镜是红外线望远镜，它可以在绝对零度以上运行，可以观测到遥远的物体。而光学望远镜就做不到在低温下运行或者观测昏暗的物体。
Spitzer initially had a life expectancy of two and a half years, which it easily outstripped.
起初，斯必泽太空望远镜的生命周期是两年半，但两年半也就是一眨眼的事情。
But in 2009, after five and a half years of operating, its liquid helium coolant finally ran out.
不过，2009年的时候，也就是斯必泽太空望远镜运行五年半的时候，液氦冷却剂用尽了。
Spitzer could no longer look at some of the very cool and dim objects it had been designed to spot.
冷却剂耗尽了，就无法观测到一开始能观测到的模糊物体了。
But at its new temperature, the telescope could still look at asteroids and comets in our own solar system, as well as far-off, ancient galaxies.
不过，即便无法维持低温，该望远镜依然可以观测到太阳系内的小行星和彗星，以及遥远的古老信息。
This was the start of its so-called warm mission which, at minus 241 degrees, was still pretty chilly.
冷却剂的耗尽标志着“温暖”任务的开始，不过所谓的“温暖”也有零下241°，其实不算暖。
As a result of this repurposing, Spitzer has subsequently observed countless amazing objects in our own solar system, and it's expected to keep going into 2020.
由于用途的转型，所以该望远镜意外地观测过太阳系内的许多物体，给了我们许多惊喜。斯必泽还会以这种方式运作到2020年。
But space missions obviously aren't all about looking at things from afar.
不过，太空任务不止是观测遥远的物体。
Sometimes we want to get up close and personal.
有时候，我们还要观测近距离的物体。
To that end, the Deep Impact mission was designed to slam a probe into a comet while the probe's mothership watched.
为了推进近距离观测，深度撞击任务启动了。该任务的目的是将探测器送往彗星，同时，探测器的母体保持观测状态。
In 2005, the 370-kilogram impactor probe successfully smashed into Comet Tempel 1 at 37,000 kilometers per hour, and in so doing, revealed a lot about the nature of comets.
2005年，370千米的撞击探测器以3.7万公里的时速成功地撞击了坦普尔1号。此次撞击让偶我们了解了许多与彗星有关的知识。
That, and dinosaurs in their graves maybe felt a twinge of catharsis.
或许恐龙们地下有知的话，也会为没看到这一幕而感到遗憾吧。
The mission was complete, but while the probe had very much crash-landed, there was still a perfectly functional mothership out there.
这次任务完成后，虽然探测器本身是紧急降落的，但母体依然完好无缺。
So mission managers sent it to do more cool comet science elsewhere.
于是，任务负责人派母体去做彗星研究。
During its new mission, dubbed EPOXI, the probe flew by another comet, made observations of Earth and Mars, and even searched for exoplanets.
在执行新任务期间，这个名为EPOXI的探测器飞过了另一颗彗星，并对地球和火星进行了观测，甚至还搜寻了系外行星的存在。
Eventually though, NASA lost contact in August of 2013.
虽然母体终究还是在2013年8月与NASA失联了。
Then there's the part where NASA used a totally different probe to get more mileage out of Deep Impact's results.
于是，NASA派另一个完全不同的探测器获取了深度撞击的数据。
The Stardust spacecraft, which flew through the tail of comet Wild 2 in 2004, was similarly successful enough to be given new tasks.
星尘飞行器于2004年飞行经过了怀尔德2号的彗星尾巴。这次大获成功之后，我们可以给它指派新的任务了。
One of these was a flyby of Tempel 1.
其中一个任务就是飞近探测坦普尔1号。
Stardust's visit in 2011 gave NASA the opportunity to observe their handiwork, and to make further observations of the unfortunate comet.
星尘飞行器2011年的任务让NASA有机会近距离观测，并为后续观测做准备。
And while we've covered it before, no discussion of spacecraft doing more than their planned workload would be complete without a mention of the Mars rover Opportunity.
虽然以前就有介绍过，但在说到超出计划执行任务的飞行器时，就不得不提到火星探测器机会号。
Oppy lasted sixty times longer than its planned lifetime of 90 days, spending nearly 15 years searching for signs of water and collecting other data on the red planet.
机会号的任务时长比计划的90天要长——它历时15年搜寻水存在的证据以及火星的其他数据。
Opportunity is a pretty extreme example, but its success speaks to the careful planning and engineering that goes into every device we launch into space.
机会号是一个比较极端的例子，但它的成功证明了周密的计划和工程准备是适用于所有太空飞行器的。
Space travel is difficult and expensive, so the scientists responsible really care about getting it right.
太空之旅艰难又昂贵，因此负责任的科学家们都很想以最佳方式实现太空飞行。
Whether it's coming up with clever fixes from afar, or just making the most of their funding, scientists have gotten pretty adept at getting everything they can out of their outer space investments.
无论是远程修理还是充分利用经费，科学家都很擅长物尽其用这件事，充分利用太空中的投资。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Space.
感谢收看本期的《太空科学秀》。
This episode, along with every other episode we make, was supported by our patrons on Patreon.
节目的最后，和往期节目一样，要再次感谢我们的忠实粉丝。
If you're interested in helping us do what we do, check out patreon.com/scishow.
如果大家想助力我们制作节目，就请访问patreon.com/scishow吧。
