ORBITAL SUBMARINE
太空潜水艇
Q. How long could a nuclear submarine last in orbit?
Q．核潜艇在近地轨道太空中能坚持多久？
-Jason Lathbury
——贾森•拉思伯里
A. THE SUBMARINE WOULD BE fine, but the crew would be in trouble.
A．潜艇本身不会有什么问题，但里面的艇员可就有麻烦了。
The submarine wouldn't burst. Submarine hulls are strong enough to withstand 50 to 80 atmospheres of external pressure from water, so they'd have no problem containing 1 atmosphere of internal pressure from air.
潜艇不会在太空中爆炸。潜艇的外壳强度足以承受50～80倍大气压的外部水压，所以承受内部的一个大气压对它来说根本不是问题。
The hull would likely be airtight. Although watertight seals don't necessarily hold back air, the fact that water can't find a way through the hull under 50 atmospheres of pressure suggests that air won't escape quickly. There may be a few specialized one-way valves that would let air out, but in all likelihood, the submarine would remain sealed.
潜艇的整个艇体应该是气密的。虽然水密并不意味着它能防止气体泄漏，但潜艇能在50个大气压下保证不漏水这一事实，应该能够说明至少空气不会泄漏得太快。潜艇上或许会有一些专门设计用来释放空气的单向阀门，但总体来说潜艇应该算是密封的。
The big problem the crew would face would be the obvious one: air.
艇员面对的问题显而易见：空气。
Nuclear submarines use electricity to extract oxygen from water. In space, there's no water,[citation needed ] so they wouldn't be able to manufacture more air. They carry enough oxygen in reserve to survive for a few days, at least, but eventually they'd be in trouble.
核潜艇使用电力从海水中提取氧气。但在太空中没有水，因而也没法用来产生更多的空气。潜艇上备有一些应急的氧气储备，可以供艇员用上几天，但最终他们还是会面临氧气用尽的困境。
To stay warm, they could run their reactor, but they'd have to be very careful how much they ran it-because the ocean is colder than space.
他们可以使用反应堆来保持温暖，不过他们需要小心掌握好尺度，因为海洋比太空更“冷”一些。
Technically, that's not really true. Everyone knows that space is very cold. The reason spacecraft can overheat is that space isn't as thermally conductive as water, so heat builds up more quickly in spacecraft than in boats.
严格来说，这句话是不对的，所有人都知道太空非常寒冷。太空飞船在太空中过热的原因在于太空的热传导性能不如海水，所以热量在太空飞船中聚积的速度比在海里的更快。
But if you're even more pedantic, it is true. The ocean is colder than space.
但如果你在咬文嚼字上更进一步，这句话也是正确的。海洋确实要比太空更冷。
Interstellar space is very cold, but space near the Sun-and near Earth-is actually incredibly hot! The reason it doesn't seem that way is that in space, the definition of “temperature” breaks down a little bit. Space seems cold because it's so empty.
星际空间非常寒冷，但在太阳（或地球）附近其实是非常热的！之所以太空看起来没有那么热，是因为“温度”的定义在太空中有点不那么适用。太空很冷，是因为它太空了。