A private company is working with the American space agency NASA to develop a new rocket that could greatly reduce space travel times.
一家私营公司正在与美国航天局美国宇航局合作开发一种新型火箭，可以大大缩短太空旅行时间。
The engine for such a rocket will be designed to sharply increase the amount of thrust to speed up space travel and improve rocket efficiency .
这种火箭的发动机将被设计成大幅增加推力，以加速太空旅行并提高火箭效率。
Thrust is the force that pushes a spacecraft through the air. It is produced by a propulsion system. Generally, a gas or liquid fuel is burned to produce thrust from the back of a spacecraft to propel it forward at high-speed.
推力是推动航天器穿过空气的力。它是由推进系统产生的。通常，航天器背面燃烧气体或液体燃料产生推力，推动其高速前进。
The new design, called Pulsed Plasma Rocket (PPR), is being developed by Arizona-based company Howe Industries . The company is currently in the early stages of studying the technology before building working engine models.
这种新设计称为脉冲等离子火箭（PPR），由亚利桑那州的 Howe Industries 公司开发。该公司目前正处于构建工作发动机模型之前研究该技术的早期阶段。
In a recent statement, Howe Industries said such rocket technology will be needed to support NASA’s plans to return humans to the moon and after that, possibly Mars. The space agency has also set a goal to build a long-term base in space. But one barrier to all these plans is the long travel times necessary with current spacecraft systems.
豪工业公司在最近的一份声明中表示，需要这种火箭技术来支持美国宇航局将人类送回月球以及之后可能送回火星的计划。该航天局还设定了在太空建立长期基地的目标。但所有这些计划的一个障碍是当前航天器系统所需的较长旅行时间。
NASA estimates the moon sits an average of about 382,500 kilometers from Earth. The exact distance changes because of the moon’s orbit around Earth. The average distance from Earth to Mars is 225 million kilometers.
NASA 估计月球距地球平均距离约为 382,500 公里。确切的距离会因月球绕地球运行的轨道而变化。地球到火星的平均距离为2.25亿公里。
NASA says a trip to Mars with existing spacecraft would take at least 200 days each way. Developers of the proposed Pulsed Plasma Rocket have said it could reduce travel time to the Red Planet to about two months each way.
NASA 表示，利用现有的航天器前往火星单程至少需要 200 天。拟议的脉冲等离子火箭的开发商表示，它可以将前往红色星球的单程时间缩短至大约两个月。
Howe Industries said its new design gives the rocket the ability to reach extremely high speeds to complete “reasonable” space travel times. The development team estimates its PPR system could produce up to 100,000 N of thrust. The ‘N’ at the end of the number stands for Newtons, a unit of measurement for thrust.
豪工业公司表示，其新设计使火箭能够达到极高的速度，以完成“合理”的太空旅行时间。开发团队估计其 PPR 系统可产生高达 100,000 N 的推力。数字末尾的“N”代表牛顿，是推力的测量单位。
NASA has described its Space Launch System (SLS) as the most powerful ever built. The agency has said the SLS rocket system is expected to provide nearly 53 million N of thrust during space travel.
美国宇航局 (NASA) 将其太空发射系统 (SLS) 描述为有史以来最强大的。该机构表示，SLS 火箭系统预计在太空旅行期间提供近 5300 万牛顿的推力。
Developers of PPR say that in addition to a huge increase in thrust, the new design also provides a “specific impulse” rate of 5,000. Specific impulse is a method for measuring – in seconds –thrust and efficiency levels of rocket engines. The higher this rate is, the more efficient the rocket system is. By comparison, the SLS rocket has specific impulse rates below 500.
PPR的开发者表示，除了推力大幅增加外，新设计还提供了5000的“比冲”率。比冲量是一种以秒为单位测量火箭发动机推力和效率水平的方法。该速率越高，火箭系统的效率就越高。相比之下，SLS 火箭的比冲率低于 500。
Officials at Howe have said the PPR is based on another plasma -based technology known as pulsed fission fusion. NASA says this process involves quickly pressing plasmas into high pressures to produce thrust. But the developers say the PPR system is smaller, simpler and costs less to operate.
Howe 的官员表示，PPR 基于另一种等离子体技术，即脉冲裂变聚变。美国宇航局表示，这个过程涉及快速将等离子体压入高压以产生推力。但开发商表示，PPR 系统更小、更简单，运行成本也更低。
Howe’s statement introducing the technology said the combination of extremely high thrust and higher specific impulse rate “holds the potential to revolutionize space exploration.”
豪在介绍这项技术的声明中表示，极高的推力和更高的比冲率的结合“具有彻底改变太空探索的潜力”。
The team said such a system should be able to propel much heavier spacecraft and support much longer trips to more distant areas of space. The planned system could also make it easier for spacecraft to be equipped with heavy shields to protect traveling astronauts from Galactic Cosmic Rays. These are highly energetic particles that move through space at nearly the speed of light. The rays can be harmful to humans in large amounts.
研究小组表示，这样的系统应该能够推动更重的航天器，并支持前往更遥远的太空区域的更远的旅行。计划中的系统还可以使航天器更容易配备重型防护罩，以保护旅行中的宇航员免受银河宇宙射线的伤害。这些是高能粒子，以接近光速的速度穿过太空。大量的射线会对人体造成伤害。
The PPR project is one in a series of NASA development projects that recently received additional financial assistance to keep running. The projects are part of a NASA program called Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC).
PPR 项目是 NASA 一系列开发项目之一，这些项目最近获得了额外的财政援助以继续运行。这些项目是 NASA 创新先进概念 (NIAC) 计划的一部分。
PPR is currently in Phase I of development. The team said if chosen by NASA to continue with Phase II, it will be centered on improving the performance of the proposed engine, as well as carrying out experiments on major engine systems. The last phase will involve completing a spaceship design for carrying humans to Mars.
PPR 目前正处于开发的第一阶段。该团队表示，如果美国宇航局选择继续进行第二阶段，其重点将是提高拟议发动机的性能，并对主要发动机系统进行实验。最后阶段将涉及完成载人前往火星的宇宙飞船设计。