INTERPLANETARY CESSNA
星级塞斯纳
Q. What would happen if you tried to fly a normal Earth airplane above different solar system bodies?
Q．如果你试图在太阳系其他天体上驾驶普通的地球飞机会怎样？
A. HERE 8217;S OUR AIRCRAFT:
A．下面先请出我们的飞机：
We have to use an electric motor because gas engines work only near green plants. On worlds without plants, oxygen doesn 8217;t stay in the atmosphere-it combines with other elements to form things like carbon dioxide and rust. Plants undo this by stripping the oxygen back out and pumping it into the air. Engines need oxygen in the air to run.
这里我们要用电动引擎，因为燃油引擎只能在有绿色植物的星球上使用。在没有植物的星球上，氧气并不会留在大气层中，它会和其他元素结合成二氧化碳和锈迹等东西。植物的存在会把这些氧给拽出来，并重新送回到空气中。引擎需要氧气才能正常工作。
Here 8217;s our pilot:
然后是我们的飞行员：
Here 8217;s what would happen if our aircraft were launched above the surface of the 32 largest solar system bodies:
下面这张图则会告诉你当飞机在太阳系最大的32颗星球表面上空释放时会发生什么。
In most cases, there 8217;s no atmosphere, and the plane would fall straight to the ground. If it were dropped from 1 kilometer or less, in a few cases the crash would be slow enough that the pilot could survive-although the life-support equipment probably wouldn 8217;t.
大多数星球上是没有大气的，所以飞机是直挺挺地摔向地面。如果坠落高度是1千米或更低的话，在一些星球上坠落的速度很慢，飞行员可能会活下来——但机载的生命维持系统大概撑不住。
There are nine solar system bodies with atmospheres thick enough to matter: Earth-obviously-Mars, Venus, the four gas giants, Saturn 8217;s moon Titan, and the Sun. Let 8217;s take a closer look at what would happen to a plane on each one.
太阳系有9颗星球有足够浓密的大气：地球——显而易见——还有火星、金星、四大气态巨行星、土星的卫星泰坦，还有太阳。现在让我们仔细分析下在这些星球上分别会发生什么。
The Sun: This would work about as well as you 8217;d imagine. If the plane were released close enough to the Sun to feel its atmosphere at all, it would be vaporized in less than a second.
太阳：嗯，跟你想象的差不多。如果飞机释放的距离近到能够感受到太阳大气的话，它会在1秒之内灰飞烟灭。
Mars: To see what would happen to our aircraft on Mars, we turn to X-Plane.
火星：要想知道在火星上驾驶飞机是什么感觉，那么就试试X-Plane火星模拟飞行吧。
X-Plane is the most advanced flight simulator in the world. The product of 20 years of obsessive labor by a hardcore aeronautics enthusiast and community of supporters, it actually simulates the flow of air over every piece of an aircraft 8217;s body as it flies. This makes it a valuable research tool, since it can accurately simulate entirely new aircraft designs-and new environments.
X-Plane是世界上最先进的飞行模拟器之一。这款软件由一群热心的航空专业人士和社区志愿者们历时20年编写出来，能够模拟飞机飞行时流过每一寸机身的气流。这使得它成为一个极为有用的研究工具，因为它能准确模拟出全新设计的飞机以及环境。