美国国家公共电台 NPR At One NASA Lab, Art And Science Share The Same Orbit

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

At NPR, our science reporters try to translate big ideas into less nerdy concepts for our audiences. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories, a team of visual strategists is doing something similar. They're creating art projects that help the public understand their various space missions. Drew Tewksbury has the story.

DREW TEWKSBURY, BYLINE¹: At the lush Huntington Botanical Gardens near Pasadena, there's a mysterious metallic² structure nestled among the palm trees. It's 17 feet tall and curled like a nautilus shell. Walk inside, and you'll hear this.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE ORBIT PAVILION SOUNDS)

TEWKSBURY: It's called the Orbit Pavilion. And it was created by a team of artists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Each sound is triggered by a tracking signal of 19 orbiting satellites above earth.

DAN GOODS: And so all day long, they move all around you, it's much like listening to a bird, you know, sort of fly across the sky. And in this particular case, it's satellites that are helping³ us understand the Earth.

TEWKSBURY: That's Dan Goods, who leads the visual strategy team at JPL's nearby headquarters. They call it the Studio at JPL.

GOODS: It's artists, designers, makers⁴, thinkers helping come up with the ways of telling the public about what NASA does, as well as helping scientists and engineers think about the future.

TEWKSBURY: His team has made travel posters for planets in distant galaxies⁵. They've simulated Jupiter's churning atmosphere in a small room. And they once drilled a hole in a grain of sand, then displayed it with six rooms filled with sand to give a sense of how tiny we are in the vast universe. We met in a wood-walled JPL conference room lined with the paintings of stern-faced former directors, including the one who hired him.

GOODS: The director of JPL gave me a six-month opportunity, and that was 14 years ago. What I find is that a lot of really creative people here - we think in similar ways. You know, we're always trying to experiment. We're trying to ask big questions and see where our experiments take us. It's been an amazing place. It's like a playground for nerds here.

TEWKSBURY: Projects like the Orbit Pavilion are meant to engage the public, but many of the teams' art experiments are on the highly secure JPL campus. These pieces are made to reinvigorate scientists who may not get feedback from their projects for months or even years. Here's an example. During its mission to Jupiter, NASA's Juno space probe made a brief pass near Earth in 2013. So Goods hatched a plan. Ham radio operators from around the world would team up and contact the spacecraft.

GOODS: We ended up getting thousands of people all around the world to all signal at exactly the same time. And we had them say hi. (Imitating Morse code). You know, Morse code.

(SOUNDBITE OF MORSE CODE BEEPING)

GOODS: We got the data back, and we could actually hear them. But when you hear the sound, it's beautiful because it really is these thousands of people from around the world all working together to do something. And it says hi.

TEWKSBURY: Goods takes me to the studio. It's a nondescript trailer where his team works.

DAVID DELGADO: It doesn't have the same water feature.

TEWKSBURY: The place is packed with stuff - remnants from projects, architectural models, plans and images pinned up on every conceivable patch of wall. Goods' longtime collaborator⁶, David Delgado, is working on a project on a NASA satellite that tracks changes in water on Earth.

DELGADO: We have water that's melting from the glaciers⁷ up in Greenland and going into the ocean. So just to get a sense of where we are - I mean, how much water are we using? What's going to happen in the future? Rising sea levels - we're building a digital water feature that will show the flow and movement of water around the earth.

TEWKSBURY: They haven't decided⁸ what final form that the project will take. But the goal of these artists is not so different than the mission of JPL scientists. They aim to inspire a sense of wonder and encourage the public to think about the universe and our place in it. For NPR News, I'm Drew Tewksbury.

(SOUNDBITE OF MELODIUM'S "AURORA BOREALIS")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 metallic   

adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的

参考例句：

• A sharp metallic note coming from the outside frightened me.外面传来尖锐铿锵的声音吓了我一跳。
• He picked up a metallic ring last night.昨夜他捡了一个金属戒指。

3 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

4 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 galaxies   

星系( galaxy的名词复数 )； 银河系； 一群（杰出或著名的人物）

参考例句：

• Quasars are the highly energetic cores of distant galaxies. 类星体是遥远星系的极为活跃的核心体。
• We still don't know how many galaxies there are in the universe. 我们还不知道宇宙中有多少个星系。

6 collaborator   

n.合作者，协作者

参考例句：

• I need a collaborator to help me. 我需要个人跟我合作，帮我的忙。
• His collaborator, Hooke, was of a different opinion. 他的合作者霍克持有不同的看法。

7 glaciers   

冰河，冰川( glacier的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Glaciers gouged out valleys from the hills. 冰川把丘陵地带冲出一条条山谷。
• It has ice and snow glaciers, rainforests and beautiful mountains. 既有冰川，又有雨林和秀丽的山峰。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。