Address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort (“We choose to go to the Moon”)
我们选择登月：肯尼迪莱斯大学演讲
来源：John F. Kennedy Presidential Library 录音（archive.org/details/jfks19620912）· 照片 NASA S62-05616 · 美国联邦政府作品，公有领域

逐字稿（英文为 ASR 逐字转写，中文为完整标点译文）
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[00:03] President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen: I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief. I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion. We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.
        皮策校长、副总统先生、州长先生、托马斯众议员、威利参议员、米勒众议员、韦布先生、贝尔先生、各位科学家、各位贵宾，女士们、先生们：感谢贵校校长授予我荣誉客座教授的头衔，我向各位保证，我的第一堂课会非常简短。我很高兴来到这里，尤其高兴能在这样的时刻来到这里。我们相聚在一所以知识著称的大学，一座以进步著称的城市，一个以实力著称的州，而这三者我们都需要，因为我们相聚在一个变革与挑战的时刻，一个希望与恐惧交织的十年，一个知识与无知并存的时代。我们的知识增长得越多，我们的无知就暴露得越多。尽管一个惊人的事实是，人类有史以来的大多数科学家，如今都还健在并仍在工作，尽管事实上我国的科技人才每12年翻一番，增长速度是我国总人口增速的3倍多，尽管如此，那大片的未知领域、悬而未决的问题和未竟的事业，仍远远超出我们全体的理解能力。

[01:41] No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50 thousand years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago.
        没有人能完全理解我们走了多远、走得多快，但不妨设想一下，把人类有记载的5万年历史压缩到区区半个世纪之内。照此来说，对于最初的40年，我们知之甚少，只知道在这40年的末尾，先进的人类学会了用兽皮遮体。接着，大约10年前，按这个标准，人类走出洞穴，搭建起其他形式的栖身之所。仅仅5年前，人类才学会写字，学会使用带轮子的车。基督教诞生还不到2年。

[02:31] The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight. This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers.
        印刷机今年才出现，然后不到2个月前，在这整整50年的人类历史中，蒸汽机提供了一种新的动力来源。牛顿探索了引力的意义。上个月，电灯、电话、汽车和飞机才问世。直到上周，我们才研发出青霉素、电视和核能，而现在，如果美国的新航天器成功抵达金星，那么在今晚午夜之前，我们就真的抵达星辰了。这是令人惊叹的速度，而这样的速度在驱散旧弊的同时，必然带来新的弊病，新的无知、新的问题、新的危险。

[03:28] Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward. So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them.
        诚然，太空展现的广阔前景意味着高昂的代价与艰辛，也意味着丰厚的回报。因此，不足为奇的是，有些人希望我们在原地多停留一会儿，休息，等待。但休斯敦这座城市、得克萨斯州、美国这个国家，都不是由那些等待、休息、只想回头看的人建成的。

[04:05] This country was conquered by those who moved forward—and so will space. William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage. If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space.
        这个国家由勇往直前的人征服，太空也将如此。威廉·布拉德福德1630年在谈及普利茅斯湾殖民地的创建时说道：一切伟大而光荣的事业都伴随着巨大的困难，二者都必须以相应的勇气去承担和克服。如果说这段简短的进步史能给我们什么启示，那就是：人类在追求知识与进步的过程中，意志坚定，不可阻挡。太空探索将继续推进，无论我们是否参与，这是有史以来最伟大的冒险之一，任何一个期望成为其他国家领导者的国家，都不能指望在这场太空竞赛中落后。我们的先辈确保了这个国家乘上了工业革命的第一波浪潮、现代发明的第一波浪潮，以及核能的第一波浪潮，而我们这一代人不愿在即将到来的太空时代的尾流中沉没。

[05:25] We mean to be a part of it—we mean to lead it.
        我们要参与其中——我们要引领它。

[05:38] For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding. Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first.
        因为如今全世界的目光都投向太空，投向月球及更远的行星，我们已经立誓，绝不让它被敌对的征服之旗所统治，而要让它由自由与和平的旗帜引领。我们已经立誓，绝不让太空充斥着大规模杀伤性武器，而要让它充满知识与理解的工具。然而，我国的誓言只有在我们这个国家争得第一时才能实现，因此，我们决心要争第一。

[06:26] In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation. We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
        总之，我们在科学和工业上的领导地位、我们对和平与安全的期望、我们对自己以及对他人的义务，都要求我们做出这番努力，去解开这些谜团，为全人类的福祉去解开它们，并成为世界头号航天大国。我们扬帆驶向这片新的海洋，是因为有新的知识等待获取，有新的权利等待争取，而这些权利必须争取到手，并用于全人类的进步。因为太空科学，如同核科学和一切技术一样，本身并没有良知。它将成为造福还是作恶的力量，取决于人类，只有美国占据卓越的领先地位，我们才能帮助决定，这片新的海洋将成为和平之海，还是一个可怕的新战场。我并不是说，我们应该或者将会对敌对方滥用太空毫无防备，正如我们不会对敌对方利用陆地或海洋毫无防备，但我确实要说，太空可以被探索、被掌握，而无需助燃战火，也不必重蹈人类在我们这个星球上扩张势力时的覆辙。

[08:03] There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal?
        外层空间中，还没有纷争，没有偏见，也没有国家间的冲突。它的种种危险，与我们所有人为敌。征服太空值得全人类倾尽所长，而太空所提供的和平合作机会，可能再也不会出现。但有人会问，为什么是月球？为什么选择它作为我们的目标？

[08:28] And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon...
        他们也不妨问，为什么要攀登最高的山峰？为什么35年前要飞越大西洋？莱斯大学为什么要和得克萨斯大学比赛？我们选择登月。我们选择登月……

[08:49] We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
        我们选择在这个十年登月，并完成其他事业，不是因为它们轻而易举，而是因为它们困难重重，因为这个目标将有助于凝聚并检验我们最充沛的精力和最精湛的技能，因为这个挑战是我们乐于接受的，是我们不愿推迟的，是我们决心赢得的，其他挑战也一样。

[09:22] It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency. In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10 thousand automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field. Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth.
        正是出于这些原因，我认为去年做出的决定——把我们的航天事业从低速挡换到高速挡——是我在总统任期内将要做出的最重要的决定之一。在过去的24小时里，我们看到正在建造的设施，将用于人类历史上最伟大、最复杂的探索。我们感受到大地震颤、空气撕裂，那是土星C-1助推火箭在进行试验，它的推力是当年发射约翰·格伦的宇宙神火箭的许多倍，产生的动力相当于1万辆汽车把油门踩到底。我们看到了这样一个场地：5台F-1火箭发动机，每台的功率都相当于土星火箭全部8台发动机的总和，将集束在一起，构成高级土星火箭，它将在卡纳维拉尔角一座新建的大楼里组装，大楼高达48层，宽如一个街区，长度相当于这片球场的两倍。过去19个月里，至少有45颗卫星环绕地球运行。

[10:45] Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union. The Mariner spacecraft...
        其中约40颗由美利坚合众国制造，它们要先进得多，为世界人民提供的知识也多得多，远超苏联的卫星。水手号探测器……

[11:04] The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines. Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs. We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them.
        正在飞往金星的水手号探测器，是太空科学史上最精密的仪器。那次发射的精度，相当于从卡纳维拉尔角发射一枚导弹，让它落在这座体育场的两条40码线之间。子午仪卫星正帮助我们的海上船只更安全地航行。泰罗斯卫星为我们提供了前所未有的飓风和风暴预警，将来还会对森林火灾和冰山发出预警。我们有过失败，别人也有，即便他们不承认。

[11:42] And they may be less public. To be sure,... To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.
        而且他们的失败可能不那么公开。诚然……诚然，我们落后了，而且在载人飞行方面还将落后一段时间。但我们不打算一直落后，在这个十年里，我们将迎头赶上，后来居上。

[12:09] The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, and the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains. And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space.
        我们的科学与教育将得到发展和丰富，得益于对宇宙和环境的新知识，得益于学习、测绘和观测的新技术，得益于用于工业、医疗、家庭以及学校的新工具和计算机。像莱斯大学这样的理工院校，将收获这些成果。最后，航天事业本身，虽仍处于起步阶段，却已催生了大批新公司，以及数以万计的新工作岗位。航天及相关产业正在产生新的需求，包括投资和技术人才，而这座城市、这个州，以及这一地区，都将在这一增长中大大受益。这里曾是西部的旧边疆上最前沿的哨所，也将成为科学与太空新边疆上最前沿的哨所。

[13:08] Houston, your city of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to 60 million dollars a year; to invest some 200 million dollars in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over 1 billion dollars from this center in this city. To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at 5 billion 400 million dollars a year—a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year.
        休斯敦，你们的休斯敦市，凭借其载人航天器中心，将成为一个庞大的科学与工程界的中心。未来5年里，美国国家航空航天局预计将把这一地区的科学家和工程师人数翻一番，将用于薪资和开支的费用增至每年6000万美元；投资约2亿美元建设厂房和实验室设施；并从这座城市的这个中心，指导或外包价值超过10亿美元的新航天项目。诚然，这一切都要花我们很多钱。今年的航天预算是1961年1月时的3倍，而且超过了此前8年航天预算的总和。这项预算目前为每年54亿美元——这是一笔惊人的巨款，虽然略低于我们每年花在香烟和雪茄上的钱。

[14:21] Space expenditures...
        航天开支……

[14:27] Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority—even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240 thousand miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25 thousand miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun—almost as hot as it is here today—and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out—then we must be bold.
        航天开支很快还会再增加，从每人每周40美分，增加到美国每个男人、女人和孩子每周50多美分，因为我们已将这项计划列为国家重点优先事项——尽管我也明白，这在某种程度上是出于信念与远见的举措，因为我们现在并不知道会有什么益处在等着我们。但是，同胞们，如果我说，我们要向月球——那个距离休斯敦控制站24万英里的地方——发射一枚高达300多英尺的巨型火箭，长度相当于这座橄榄球场，由新型合金制成，其中有些合金尚未发明出来，它能承受的高温和应力是以往所承受过的数倍，组装精度超过最精密的手表，携带推进、制导、控制、通信、食品和生存所需的全部设备，执行一项从未尝试过的任务，飞向一个未知的天体，然后再安全返回地球，再入大气层时速度超过每小时2.5万英里，产生的高温约为太阳温度的一半——几乎和今天这里一样热——要完成这一切，而且要做好，还要在这个十年结束之前抢先完成——那我们就必须勇敢无畏。

[16:14] I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university.
        活儿都是我在干，所以请大家先凉快一会儿。不过，我想我们会做到的，而且我认为该付出的代价我们必须付出。我认为我们不应浪费一分钱，但我认为我们应该把这件事做成。这将在六十年代完成。也许在你们当中一些人还在这所大学就读时就能完成。

[16:35] It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade. And I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.
        这将在今天台上就座的一些人的任期之内完成。但它一定会完成。而且将在这个十年结束之前完成。我很高兴，这所大学正在为把人送上月球贡献力量，作为美利坚合众国一项伟大国家事业的一部分。

[17:01] Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there." Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. Thank you.
        多年前，伟大的英国探险家乔治·马洛里——他后来遇难于珠穆朗玛峰——被问及为何要攀登它。他说：“因为山就在那里。”太空就在那里，我们要去攀登它，月球和行星就在那里，对知识与和平的新希望也在那里。因此，当我们扬帆起航，我们祈求上帝赐福于这项最艰险、最危险、也是人类有史以来最伟大的冒险。谢谢大家。
