月球上飄揚(yáng)的國(guó)旗
Don: Yaël, I’m not a conspiracytheorist or anything, but I must admit that those photographs of the moon landing make me suspicious. I mean,the flag in those pictures of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong is rippling in the wind; and everyone knows that there is no atmosphere on the moon. And no atmosphere means no breeze.
Yaël: Well, as you can imagine, the folks who came up with the idea of taking an American flag to the moon were aware that unless they rigged something up, the flag would just hang there. So they built a special flagpole expressly for the purpose of making the flag appear to fly.
D: So our taxer' dollars went to work reinventing the flagpole?
Y: Actually, it’s not a trivial problem.The astronauts would be wearing bulky space suits, so they needed a flagpole that was easy to assemble and to plant in the ground. Plus, the pole had to be portable, and not use up a lot of precious cargo space. So scientists rigged a telescoping pole with a telescopinghorizontal crossbar that was supposed to make the flag look as if it were blowing in the wind.
The flag itself was standard issue, although the top was hemmed so that the astronauts would be able to slide it over the crossbar. Plus the entire assembly weighed less than ten pounds. Even so, the astronauts reported having some trouble setting the flag up. They weren’t able to stick the pole far enough into the ground, and they weren’t able to fully extend the horizontal crossbar.
D: That explains the rippling effect.
Y: And takes the air out of your conspiracy theory.
D:我并非一個(gè)陰謀理論家,可是,不得不承認(rèn),我開(kāi)始懷疑這些月球登陸照片的真實(shí)性。宇航員尼爾•阿姆斯特朗和巴斯•奧爾德林和國(guó)旗的合影中,美國(guó)國(guó)旗迎風(fēng)而舞??墒?,誰(shuí)都知道,月球上沒(méi)有任何空氣,沒(méi)有空氣又何來(lái)的微風(fēng)呢?
Y:當(dāng)然,你應(yīng)該考慮到,那些提出將美國(guó)國(guó)旗帶到月球的人們,肯定會(huì)預(yù)料到即便帶去了,國(guó)旗也只是耷拉著腦袋。所以,他們專(zhuān)門(mén)制造了一種特殊旗桿,讓國(guó)旗飄揚(yáng)。
D:那就是說(shuō),我們納稅人的錢(qián)又用來(lái)制造特殊旗桿了?
Y:沒(méi)錯(cuò),但是,這可并非易事。宇航員的太空服笨重,所以旗桿需要易于組裝,也便于插在地上。此外,旗桿還必須輕便,省得占去寶貴的太空艙空間。所以,科學(xué)家設(shè)計(jì)了內(nèi)置可伸縮旗桿。(一個(gè)可折疊的7字狀的旗桿,不用的時(shí)候是1形狀,插在月球時(shí)候,旗桿打開(kāi)了,因?yàn)橛梢粋€(gè)橫桿支著,所以可以飄起來(lái)。)
國(guó)旗也是關(guān)鍵,國(guó)旗的頂端鑲邊了,以便宇航員將國(guó)旗滑動(dòng)至橫桿。雖然旗桿的總重量不到10磅,但是,據(jù)報(bào)道,宇航員還是遇到些困難撐起國(guó)旗。比如,無(wú)法將旗桿深入地表;無(wú)法將橫桿調(diào)至最長(zhǎng)。
D:這就解釋了漣漪作用。
Y:現(xiàn)在,你不懷疑了吧?