PBS高端访谈:电动飞机出世,空中出租车的科幻梦或将成真（在线收听）

On a day when Exxon and Royal Dutch/Shell took some hits in court and among their shareholders, it's clear there is increasing pressure to address climate change.

今天，埃克森美孚(Exxon)和荷兰皇家壳牌(Royal Dutch/Shell)在法庭上及其股东之间遭受了一些打击，应对气候变化的压力明显越来越大。

Fuel for transportation is a big part of the problem. And airplanes are especially difficult.

交通燃料是问题的主要部分，其中航空业尤占大头。

Miles O'Brien looks at efforts to create electric planes of the future. It is part of a special "NOVA" documentary tonight.

下面由迈尔斯·奥布赖恩为您介绍未来的电动飞机。该内容是今晚“NOVA”特别纪录片的一部分。

Chandler Airport in Fresno, California has been in operation since the Wright brothers era, aviation 1.0.

位于加州弗雷斯诺的钱德勒机场自莱特兄弟时代开始运营，航空1.0。

Today, the art deco glory has faded, but Joseph Oldham is using this old, underutilized place to help launch a new age of flight, aviation 3.0.

如今，装饰艺术的荣耀已经褪去，但约瑟夫·奥尔德姆正在利用这个老旧的、未被充分利用的地方帮助开启飞行的新时代，航空3.0。

This is the third revolution of aviation. The first revolution, of course, was powered flight.

这是航空业的第三次革命。第一次革命，当然，是动力飞行。

The second revolution was jet in the 1940s, early 1950s. Electric propulsion is the third revolution.

第二次革命是20世纪40年代到50年代初的喷气式飞机。电力驱动是第三次革命。

These are Pipistrel Alpha Electros, the first certified all-electric airplanes in the world.

这是Pipistrel公司的Alpha Electros型号飞机，世界上第一架经过认证的全电动飞机。

And he was gracious enough to give a fellow pilot the right seat. All right, we're set. Contact, huh?

他还慷慨地把右边的座位让给了另一位飞行员。好的，我们已经准备好了，联系吧？，

Clear.

准备完毕！

It was as simple as flipping a switch. It was weirdly quiet as we taxied to the runway.

跟直接按一下开关差不多，特别简单。我们滑行到跑道的时候一点噪音都没有。

The noisiest thing on this airplane are the brakes.

这架飞机上最吵的是刹车。

And watch what happened when we stopped to wait for traffic.

看看我们停下来等待起飞的时候会是什么情况。

You just sit here just like an electric car.

我就这样坐在这里，就像坐在电动车里一样。

That just cracks me up.

哈哈，太好笑了。

Electric propulsion systems are so simple that really there's just nothing that you really need to be that concerned about.

电力推进系统非常简单，没有什么真的需要担心的地方。

Are we flying the future right now?

我们正飞向未来吗？

We absolutely are.

当然了。

It was a hazy day, the result of some raging wildfires nearby, a reminder of the climate emergency which makes the decarbonization of aviation so urgent.

今天的天儿雾蒙蒙的，附近出现了几起比较大的野火，这提醒我们气候危机让航空脱碳变得非常紧迫。

How important do you think that is to think about taking fossil fuels out of aviation over the long run?

从长远看的话，你觉得让化石燃料脱离航空业有多重要？

Well, it's huge. It's the only mode of transportation that really has not moved aggressively towards zero emission.

嗯，非常重要。这是唯一一种还没有向零排放迈进的交通方式。

Globally, about 15 percent of the human carbon footprint comes from transportation.

全球范围内，大约有15%的人类碳足迹来自交通运输。

We see some signs of progress. Electric car sales are rising as prices drop. But aviation?

我们看到了一些进步的迹象。电动汽车的销量随着价格的下降而上升，但航空呢？

It's one of the hardest transportation problems to solve. Pound for pound, liquid fuel contains 16 times more energy than the best batteries.

航空是最难解决的交通问题之一。平均下来液体燃料所含的能量是最好的电池的16倍。

So, while short hops on smaller planes may be possible, the batteries needed to fly big airliners on long flights would make the plane way too heavy.

所以，小型飞机的短途飞行是可行的，但大型客机的长途飞行所需的电池会让飞机变得非常重。

Yet, all over the world, engineers, entrepreneurs and aviators are trying to meet the challenge.

然而，世界各地的工程师、企业家和飞行员都在努力迎接这一挑战。

They are experimenting, starting small, creating some flying machines like never seen before.

他们正在进行实验，从小处着手，创造出一些前所未有的飞行器。

Maybe we should step over and see how it is to sit in the aircraft. So...

我们要不要过去体验一下坐在飞机上是什么感觉。

JoeBen Bevirt Founded Joby Aviation in 2009. The aircraft he and his team designed is now in flight testing for FAA certification.

乔本·贝弗特于2009年创立了乔比航空公司。他和他的团队设计的飞机目前正在接受FAA(联邦航空局)认证的飞行测试，

It's the current leader in the race to fill the world with electric air taxis. It carries a pilot and four passengers under six tilting motors.

是目前全球电动空中出租车竞赛的领跑者，有6个倾转电机，搭载了1名飞行员和4名乘客。

It provides us an aircraft which is incredibly good at hovering and incredibly good at cruising. That efficiency in cruise is what gets us our range and gets us our speed.

它是一架非常擅长悬停和巡航的飞机，巡航的效率决定了我们的航程和速度。

He says it can fly 200 miles per hour and has a range of 150 miles.

他说这架飞机每小时可飞行200英里，航程为150英里。

In order to have the impact that we want to have, in order to transform the way everyone moves every day, we will need to make millions of these.

为了能够产生我们想要的影响，为了能够改变每个人每天的出行方式，我们将需要制造数百万架这种飞机。

Our mission is to save a billion people an hour a day.

我们的使命是每天每小时为十亿人提供出行。

A billion people flying air taxis? How could that be safe? At NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, they're tackling the air traffic control challenge.

十亿人乘坐空中出租车？这怎么可能安全呢？在美国宇航局位于硅谷的艾姆斯研究中心，他们正在解决空中交通管制带来的挑战。

We're tracking a UAM 003 currently.

我们目前正在追踪UAM 003。

Looks good. And the speed is OK.

看起来不错，速度还可以。

Sandy Lozito is chief of the Aviation Systems Division.

桑迪·洛齐托是航空系统部门的负责人。

We do not necessarily expect a centralized air traffic control tower to do it, with individual directives telling the pilots how to come in and out of the vertiport.

我们并不指望中央空中交通管制塔能用单独的指令告诉飞行员如何进出机场，我们不指望它做到这一点。

And so that's a very different operation. There could be much more independence on the part of the pilots and the individual operators as they move in and out of these areas.

这是一个非常不同的操作。当飞行员和操作员进出这些区域时他们可以有更多的独立性。

We live in times that demand action to address the climate emergency.

我们生活在需要采取行动应对气候紧急情况的时代。

But proponents of electric aviation say their business models do not rely on altruism. They believe they can win in the free market.

但电动航空的支持者表示，他们的商业模式并不依赖于利他主义。他们相信他们能在自由市场中获胜。

We want to be comparable in the cost to the price of a taxi at launch and bring that cost down to the cost of personal car ownership over the coming years.

我们希望推出时的成本能和出租车的价格相当，并在未来几年将成本降至私家车的成本。

Those competing in the great electric airplane race are convinced a revolutionary moment like that is in the air. For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Miles O'Brien in Santa Cruz, California.

那些在这场电动飞机竞赛中竞争的人们确信这样一个革命性的时刻就在空中。这里是PBS新闻一小时节目，我是迈尔斯·奥布莱恩，在加州圣克鲁兹为您报道。

The future is here. And you can watch "The Great Electric Airplane Race" on PBS' "NOVA" tonight.

未来就在这里。今晚大家可以在PBS的“NOVA”节目上观看“伟大的电动飞机比赛”。