An ambitious billionaire has revealed his plans to colonise Mars - and charge 80,000 brave souls $500,000 to be flown there.一个野心勃勃的亿万富翁透漏了他在火星上殖民的计划——这必须8万个勇敢的人缴纳50万美金飞抵火星才能构建。Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, has announced his vision for life on the Red Planet.私营太空公司SpaceX的创始人、首席执行官亿万富翁艾龙马斯克早已宣告了他对火星生命的宏图。He says the settlement plan would start small, with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who he would take there on a reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.他说道，殖民计划不会自小跟上，再行送来10人以下的先锋队去火星，他将用一艘以液态氧气和甲烷驱动的可重复使用的火箭载运这些人前往火星。

Musk, already the first private space entrepreneur to launch a successful mission to the International Space Station this spring, says what would begin by first sending fewer than 10 people could blossom into something really big.就在今年春天，马斯克早已沦为第一个顺利已完成国际空间站飞行中任务的私营太空企业家。马斯克说道这个10人以下的先驱项目不会发展成“宏大大业”。At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big, he told the Royal Aeronautical Society in London last week while awarded the society’s gold medal for his contribution to the commercialization of space.上周英国皇家航空协会在伦敦给马斯克授予了协会的金质奖章，表扬他为太空商业化所做到的贡献。

马斯克在表彰大会上说道：“在火星上，你可以再行建设起自给自足的文明，然后渐渐发展成最出色的火星文明。”Laying out precise details and figures to his difficult but possible plans, the space pioneer says the first ferry of explorers would be no more than 10 people at a price tag of $500,000 (312,110) per ticket.这位太空先驱列出了他“艰难”但“不切实际”的计划的准确细节和数字，他说道载运的第一批探险者将不多达10个人，票价为每人50万美元（合312110英镑）。

The ticket price needs to be low enough that most people in advanced countries, in their mid-forties or something like that, could put together enough money to make the trip, he said.他说道：“票价必须较低到让发达国家的大多数四十多岁的中年人都能筹到的地步。”Rather than lounging around on an interplanetary vacation, the passengers would be sent to work, carrying with them equipment to build sustainable housing on the dusty and currently barren soil for future generations.这些乘客可不是去火星渡假旅游的，他们是去挣钱的。

他们将用装载的设备在火星当前灰尘覆盖面积的肥沃土地上为未来数代人建设耐久性住房。Immediate ground work would focus on building transparent domes pressurized with CO2 while possibly covered in a layer of water to serve as protection from the sun.他们到火星后将立即积极开展的地面工作主要是修建密封半透明的穹顶形二氧化碳涡轮建筑，外表层可能会覆盖面积一层“水墙”，以避免穹顶内居民受到太阳辐射损害。With the CO2, Mars soil would be capable of growing crops for food, he said.他说道，有了二氧化碳，火星的土壤就能栽种庄稼。

Additional equipment carried over could also produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen using the atmosphere’s natural elements of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and its surface of ice water.降下的其他设备还可以用火星大气中天然的氮气、二氧化碳和表面的冰水生产出有肥料、甲烷和氧气。Musk believes one person out of every 100,000 people would be interested in making the journey with 8 billion expected on Earth by time his plans become reality.马斯克坚信每10万人中不会有1人对这次火星之旅感兴趣，而在他的计划变为现实之前，地球上将步入80亿个新生命。

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