Well, it all comes down to this. NASA has given SpaceX the thumbs up to become the first company in its Commercial Crew program to send humans into space. The race between SpaceX and Boeing, which had hoped its Starliner spacecraft would be the first to send humans to space from American soil in roughly a decade, is nearing its end.
好吧，一切都归结于此。美国国家航空航天局(NASA)对太空探索技术公司(SpaceX)表示赞许，称其将成为第一家将人类送上太空的商业载人计划公司。太空探索技术公司和波音公司之间的竞争已经接近尾声。
The launch, which won’t take place for another couple of months, will be the culmination of an incredible amount of work on the part of SpaceX, which has seen its fair share of setbacks along the way.
这次发射要再过几个月才会进行，它将是SpaceX公司难以置信的努力的顶点，该公司在发射过程中也遇到了不少挫折。
The mission will see a pair of NASA astronauts — Dough Hurley and Bob Behnken — travel from Earth to the International Space Station. Being able to send US astronauts to the space station without relying on seats aboard Russian rockets has been a major goal for NASA and it hired both Boeing and SpaceX to come up with crewed spacecraft capable of filling that need.
这次任务将看到美国国家航空航天局的两名宇航员——Dough Hurley和Bob Behnken——从地球前往国际空间站。美国宇航局的一个主要目标是能够在不依赖俄罗斯火箭的情况下将美国宇航员送往空间站，NASA聘请了波音公司和SpaceX公司来设计能够满足这一需求的载人飞船。
Early on, most analysts assumed Boeing would be the first to get the all-clear from NASA to send humans to space. However, as months passed it became clear that SpaceX was hitting its milestones more rapidly than its competitor. It was all going so well for SpaceX… until it didn’t.
早些时候，大多数分析人士认为，波音公司将是第一个获得NASA批准将人类送上太空的公司。然而，几个月过去了，情况变得越来越明显:SpaceX比竞争对手更快地实现了里程碑式的突破。对SpaceX来说，一切都进展得很顺利……直到它失败了。
In April 2019, a static test of Crew Dragon resulted in an explosion and a total loss of the vehicle. An investigation was launched and NASA noted that there would be significant delays as a result. This seemed to open the door for Boeing to take the lead, but the company’s Starliner spacecraft ran into its own laundry list of problems and recently had to abort an unmanned trip to the space station after a glitch caused the ship to burn too much fuel early on.
在2019年4月，乘员龙的静态测试导致了爆炸和车辆的全部损失。一项调查已经启动，美国国家航空和宇宙航行局指出，这将导致重大延误。这似乎为波音公司打开了领先的大门，但该公司的“星际飞船”(Starliner)遇到了自己的一系列问题，最近不得不取消了一次前往空间站的无人驾驶之旅，原因是一处故障导致飞船在早期燃烧了太多燃料。
Now, with 2020 well underway and NASA desperate for a vehicle to send astronauts into space, it seems SpaceX will cross the finish line first. The launch, which is currently expected to take place in early May, will be one for the record books.
现在，随着2020年的到来，美国国家航空和宇宙航行局(NASA)迫切需要一种能将宇航员送入太空的运载工具，SpaceX似乎会第一个冲过终点线。此次发射预计将于5月初进行，一切将载入史册。
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