Star Trek's Captain Kirk is about to boldly go where hundreds of others have gone before, continuing a decades-long tradition of space flights for non-astronauts who are wealthy or famous or well-connected — or all of the above.
《星际迷航》中船长Kirk即将启航无所畏惧地前往哪个曾经数百人争相恐后践踏过的地方 ，数十年以来，延续着哪些富可敌国、声名显赫之人（无宇航员的背景）遨游太空的传统壮举。
As for ordinary folks without deep pockets — well, the final frontier might be opening up a just a bit, but opportunities still basically come down to contests and luck.
对于那些没有雄厚财力的普通民众而言，最终的疆界可能会稍稍开放一点，但是机会归结为争取和运气。
Space for the few
遨游太空只是少数人的旅行
Actor William Shatner is scheduled to blast off Wednesday morning on a quick trip to the edge of space and back, riding in the capsule developed by Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.
（美国）男演员威廉姆斯.夏洛特计划于周三上午发射升空，将搭乘由蓝色起源研发的太空舱前往太空边缘短暂旅行并返回，蓝色起源由亿万富翁杰夫·贝索斯（Jeff Bezos）所创立。
Actor William Shatner
The 90-year-old actor, who will be the oldest person to reach space, has said he feels "terrified." Shatner's reportedly going as a guest rather than as a paying customer.
作为世界上最高龄遨游太空之人，90岁高龄男演员（威廉姆斯.夏洛特）感到“极度恐慌”，据媒体报道称，夏洛特此次遨游太空作为受邀宾客，而不是自费的客户。
"I do think it's classic marketing," says Joseph Czabovsky, an associate professor of public relations and marketing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
北卡罗来纳大学基督山分校公共关系与市场营销学助理教授Joseph Czabovsky表示：“我认为这是一种非常经典的营销（模式）”。
Whenever a new product or service makes a splash, like the first Blue Origin flight did this summer, he says, companies have to figure out how to keep the public's attention.
Joseph Czabovsky说：“每当一种新产品或者新服务横空出世引起轰动时，就像今年夏天蓝色起源飞行器发射升空一样，公司必须想尽办法如何吸引公众的眼球”。
"William Shatner makes sense in that here's a celebrity that made their claim to fame on traveling in space," says Czabovsky. "It's like a one-time, kind of kitschy branding opportunity."
Czabovsky说：“威廉姆斯.夏洛特意识到遨游太空可以使他成为声名鹊起的名人，这机会就像一次性、庸俗的品牌推广一样”。
But even though a celebrity like Shatner can generate headlines, says Czabovsky, this kind of marketing stunt does run the risk of reinforcing the perception that spaceflight is just for the privileged few.
“即使像夏洛特这样的名人也可以成为头条新闻”，Czabovsky说：“这种营销噱头冒着极大的风险，加深了太空旅行只是为少数富人服务的（错误）观念”。
After all, one seat on Blue Origin's first flight was auctioned off for $28 million. Czabovsky recently worked on a poll that found about 80% of U. S. residents saw the recent launches as "billionaire ego trips."
毕竟，蓝色起源首航每位旅客（座位）竞拍高达2800万美元，最近Czabovsky做一项民意调查研究显示，大约80%的美国民众视此次发射为“亿万富豪自我旅行”。
"You have that kind of cynicism, negativity, maybe realistic understanding of what is going on," he says.
他还说：“你有一种愤世嫉俗的消极情绪 ，也许是对正在发生之事一种现实理解”。
Despite that, that poll also showed that people generally felt positive about space travel's potential for humanity, says Czabovsky.
Czabovsky说：“尽管如此，这次民意调查研究还显示，更多民众对太空旅行所持态度是积极的，对人类潜在影响是乐观的”。
More than half said the recent private spaceflights made them believe that one day soon, ordinary people will be able to go to space.
过半的美国民众说：“最近私人太空飞船的发射让他们坚信，不久的将来，普通民众也可以去太空旅行”。
That's long been the promise of both real-life space travel and science fiction shows like Star Trek. In the early days of the Space Age, astronauts famously had to have "The Right Stuff"; they were mostly military pilots. But the possibility of space vehicles someday becoming more like airlines didn't seem so farfetched.
长期以来，现实太空旅行跟《星际迷航》科幻小说展示那样只是一种许诺，在星际时代的早期，著名宇航员成为了“太空英雄”；他们多数是军机飞行员，将来的某一天，让太空飞行器更像航空公司一样的可能性，不再看起来那么难以置信。
A brief history of ordinary folks in space
普通民众遨游太空的简史
When NASA's space shuttles began flying in the 1980s, all kinds of VIPs started lobbying to go as passengers, says Alan Ladwig, author of See You In Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight.
《在轨道上遇见你，我们的航天梦》的作者Alan Ladwig说：“美国航天局的航天飞机在1980年开始飞行时，五花八门的贵宾开始游说成为太空旅行的乘客前往”。
A task force ultimately decided that flying a non-astronaut would be OK for NASA to do, for public education purposes. That's why, in 1984, President Ronald Reagan said he was directing NASA "to chose as the first citizen passenger in the history of our space program, one of America's finest: a teacher."
出于对公共教育的目的，太空任务组最终决定美国国宇航局可以让非宇航员身份的民众太空飞行，这就是为什么罗纳德 . 里根总统在1984年指示美国宇航局挑选美国太空计划项目历史上首位乘客，美国最杰出代表之一：教师。
Ladwig, who managed NASA's program for citizens in space, remembers going on Late Night with David Letterman to talk about it. "I said the first spaceflight participant program would be the teacher," he recalls.
拉德维希 (Ladwig) 负责管理 美国航天局的太空公民计划项目，他清晰记得，跟大卫·莱特曼 (David Letterman)在深夜里 讨论过这此事。 “我说首个太空飞行计划的参与者是位老师，”他回忆道。
The very next day, however, he was stunned to see a newspaper report that Senator Jake Garn, who chaired the committee that oversaw NASA's budget, would be flying in space.
然而，翌日他在一篇新闻报道中惊讶地发现，负责监督美国宇航局财政预算的参议院 Jake Garn将执行太空飞行计划。
NASA ultimately flew not just Garn, but also another member of Congress, Bill Nelson, who is now the head of NASA. Both went up before the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster, which killed the whole crew, including teacher Christa McAuliffe. She had participated in a nationwide contest to select the first teacher and had received widespread publicity; millions of Americans watched the tragic explosion.
美国宇航局最终（执行太空飞行计划人员）不仅参议院Jake Garn，还有另一位议会成员 Bill Nelson，目前是美国宇航局负责人，两人都在1986年挑战者号航天飞机灾难之前登陆了太空，那次灾难造成了机组人员全部遇难，也包括首位全国范围内选拔出的教师Christa McAuliffe，当时她收到了广泛的宣传，数百万美国人亲眼目睹爆炸惨剧的发生。
"There was some criticism out of Congress, some media, that, well, this just shows space is too dangerous for an ordinary citizen," recalls Ladwig, who says NASA canceled plans to fly a journalist in space.
“议会和一些新闻媒体批评说，此次事件展示太空飞行公民计划对于普通民众太危险了” ，拉德维希 (Ladwig) 回忆到，还说美国宇航局取消了一位记者的太空飞行计划。
After that, NASA only flew professional astronauts, with the exception of John Glenn, a former astronaut and the first American to ever orbit the Earth. When Glenn said he wanted to fly again at the age of 77, NASA gave the go-ahead.
从那（挑战者号事件）之后，美国宇航局只允许职业宇航员太空飞行，首位绕地球轨道飞行的前美国宇航员John Glenn除外，当77岁高龄的Glenn再次想太空飞行时，美国宇航局同意了 。
"The media turned out in droves for that mission, the public loved it," says Ladwig, noting that Glenn was a national hero.
拉德维西说：“媒体为了这项任务争相恐后而来， 公众也热衷于此，Glenn就成为了国家英雄”。
For people who weren't astronauts or national heroes, the only way to get to space, for years, was paying millions of dollars to Russia.
对于那些不是职业宇航员或者国家英雄之人，数年来唯一进入太空的途径就是支付俄罗斯数百万美元。
The Russian space agency has sold trips to orbiting space stations to a TV journalist from Japan, a bunch of businessmen turned space tourists, and just last week, an actress and movie director.
俄罗斯宇航局兜售绕太空站旅行给一位日本电台记者、一群有钱的富商，摇身一变成为太空游客，仅仅上周，一位女演员和电影导演（进入太空旅行）。
Space tourism takes off
太空旅游（产业）将要腾飞
Now, though, Russia has competition from U. S. companies. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin both offer up-and-back jaunts that have a few minutes of weightlessness. And Space X has a capsule that can orbit the planet for days.
虽然目前俄罗斯面临来自美国公司的竞争，维珍银河（Virgin Galactic）和蓝色起源（Blue Origin）只提供短暂失重状态下短途旅行，但 Space X提供一个可以环绕地球数天的天空仓（旅行）。
This year, flights operated by these firms have taken a motley assortment of people to space — what Saturday Night Live recently called "random weirdos" in a skit that parodied both Star Trek and rich space entrepreneurs.
今年这些公司运营航线送人们到达太空旅行，最近周六夜场秀模仿《星际迷航》和太空富商的表演称之为“随机怪人”。
Just a couple of days later, Blue Origin announced that it was taking up Shatner.
仅仅几天后，蓝色起源宣布将携夏洛特（遨游太空旅行）。
The SpaceX flight in September that made history by having no professional astronauts on board was bankrolled by a billionaire Jared Isaacman. But he offered up three seats to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, which allowed a physician assistant from the hospital to go, as well as a community college professor who won a contest and a data engineer whose friend won a fundraising sweepstakes.
在今年九月份SpaceX创造了非专业宇航员飞行的历史，此次飞行任务由亿万富豪Jared Isaacman资助，他提供三个席位来支持一位来自孟菲斯的圣裘德儿童研究医院的助理医师，一位社区比赛中取胜的大学教授，还有一位数据工程师，他的朋友成了筹款抽奖活动的幸运儿。
One nonprofit, called Space For Humanity, is trying to raise money to sponsor space trips for people from all over the world who might otherwise never be able to afford them.
一个取名为“人类太空”的非盈利组织试图筹集资金，为世界各地人们提供太空旅行的资助，否则，他们可能无法负担起（太空旅行的费用）。
"We are now at this cusp of a new era in space exploration, where more and more people are going to have access to this experience," say Rachel Lyons, executive director of the group, who says seeing the Earth from space can have a transformative effect. "We believe that it's our responsibility to use this advancement in technology for the good of all."
该组织的执行董事雷切尔·莱昂斯 (Rachel Lyons) 表示：“我们现在正处于太空探索新纪元的分水岭，越来越多的人将会获得这种体验。” 从太空上遥望地球将一种变革效应。 “我们相信，利用这种技术进步造福所有人是我们的责任。
She says right now, space is just "not accessible to 99.99% of humanity," and that about 4,000 people from over 100 countries have applied to their program.
她说：“目前“99.99% 的人类无法进入太空”，来自 100 多个国家大约 有4,000 人已经申请加入他们的项目”。
