国家地理 为什么火箭爱好者都愿意来这片沙漠(2)（在线收听）

One engineer installed a GoPro camera on his rocket; he showed Ormerod pictures it had captured high in the sky. Others get creative -- one rocket is shaped like a bottle of Jagermeister. From the control center comes a countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The rockets blast off, then gently float back to Earth under parachutes -- if they don't malfunction.

一位工程师在火箭上安装了GoPro相机，并向摄影师奥默罗德展示了它在高空拍摄的照片。另一些人也推出自己的创意，比如形状像酒瓶的火箭。从控制中心传来倒计时的声音，火箭发射后，如果没有发生故障，就会在降落伞的帮助下轻轻飘回地面。

Ormerod was into astronauts and science fiction as a kid but never imagined being able to travel beyond Earth. "When only a tiny percentage of people can go to space, what does everyone else who dreams of it do?" he wondered. Then, at a rocket launch in his native Scotland, he found the answer: They live their interstellar dreams on the ground. Soon he was following scientists to a Mars simulation in Utah and aurora hunters to the otherworldly coast of Iceland. Next he'll visit crop circle enthusiasts in Russia and astronomers in South Africa. "They're ordinary people," Ormerod says, "but they're blasting into outer space."

奥默罗德小时候很喜欢宇航员和科幻小说，但从没想过自己能飞出地球。他想知道：“当只有很小一部分人可以进入太空时，其他所有梦想进入太空的人又会做什么？”然后，在家乡苏格兰的一次火箭发射中，奥默罗德找到了答案：他们在地面上实现了他们的星际梦想。不久后，奥默罗德跟随科学家前往犹他州进行火星模拟实验，并跟随奥罗拉猎人前往超凡脱俗的冰岛海岸。接下来，他将访问俄罗斯麦田怪圈爱好者和南非天文学家。奥默罗德说：“他们都是普通人，但他们正冲向外太空。”