NASA将建造太空气球环游土星

Jules Verne's fictional adventurer Phileas Fogg may have been more ahead of his time than we thought. It took Phileas Fogg 80 days to circumnavigate the world.

儒勒?凡尔纳的小说中虚构的冒险家菲力斯霍治可能比我们想象的还走在时代的前列。小说中，菲力斯·霍治用了80天环游世界。

Nasa has retired its expensive shuttle missions, and is exploring a cheaper form of space travel - using balloons to travel across the surface of planets and moons.

美国宇航局停止了昂贵的穿梭计划，并开始探索较便宜的形式的太空旅行——用气球来穿越行星和卫星的表面。

The agency is spending $10 million trialing a series of blimps for use in future missions

代理中心花费1千万美金为未来的任务实验一系列的软式小型飞船。

The balloons would be used to transport equipment on unmanned missions. First stop on the list of potential destinations for a balloon is Saturn's biggest moon Titan.

气球在无人的任务会被用来当作运输设备。列表上气球的第一个潜在的目的地是土星最大的卫星泰坦。

To survive there, a balloon, designed by Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, would have to withstand temperatures around -180C.

为了在那里生存，美国宇航局喷气推进实验室设计的气球必须要经受得起零下180度左右的气温。

Prototypes for the project are being tested at high altitudes by Oregon-based firm Near Space Corp, which employs just 15 people. Tim Lachenmeier, Near Space Corp's president, told Msnbc.com: 'We can simulate the Mars atmosphere that they would have to pass through.'

这个计划的雏形由近空间公司在俄亥俄州高海拔地区进行测试，该公司只有15名员工。近空间公司的董事长汤姆·拉赫迈尔告诉Msnbc.com：“我们可以模拟火星的大气情况，那是他们将必须要通过的环境。”

One of the company's most ambitious projects for Nasa had involved testing the components for an airplane that would be flown to Mars inside a spacecraft, then unfold itself and fly through the Red Planet's thin atmosphere. 'Out of the 4,000 people in Tillamook, not more than one in 10 knows we're here,' Mr Lachenmeier added.

公司为美国宇航局工作工作的最值得推崇的项目，涉及测试被装在飞往火星的宇宙飞船内的一些飞行器组件，它将自己从飞船中分离出来，从稀薄的大气中穿越火星。

Near Space is based in an isolated World War II-era blimp hangar south of Tillamook.

近空间公司建立在蒂拉穆克南部，是一个与世隔绝的第二次世界大战期间的软式飞艇机库。“蒂拉穆克有不超过4000人，不会有超过10个人知道我们在这。”拉赫迈尔先生补充道。