2020年经济学人 查尔斯·耶格尔将军(3)（在线收听）

At 74,700 feet (22,800 metres), and at 2.44 Mach speed, it began to roll uncontrollably, then spin upside down. Completely disoriented, battered by plus and minus g-loads, he remembered his helmet cracking the inner canopy, and not a lot else. At last the plane got upright and, at 25,000 feet, he popped it out of the spin. He had dropped 50,000 feet in 70 seconds. Back in radio contact, he gasped out: Christ! Boy, I'm not doing that any more. It was odd enough that he was in the air anyway. As a boy, running the hills or sitting with his grandfather learning to fish, he never got near a plane, except to see one in the sky. He had no ambitions that way and, with only high school behind him, not enough education.

在7.47万英尺（2.28万米）处，以2.44马赫的速度，它开始不受控制地滚动，然后倒转。他完全迷失了方向，受到正负重力的重创，他记得他的头盔打碎了内部的顶棚，而不是其他很多东西。最后飞机直立起来，在2.5万英尺的高度，他把它从旋转中弹出。他在70秒内掉了5万英尺。他对着无线电通讯说，他气喘吁吁地说：天哪！天哪，我再也不会那样做了。不管怎样，他在空中已经够奇怪的了。当他还是个孩子的时候，跑山或者和爷爷坐在一起学钓鱼，他除了在空中看到一架飞机外，从未接近过飞机。他没有那种雄心壮志，只有高中，没有足够的教育。

He enlisted in the air force in 1941 as a mechanic, earthbound and easy, because he had already tinkered for years with engines, water-pumps and his father's cable tools for drilling for natural gas. He took up flight training mostly because pilots had beautiful girls on their arms, and hands that weren't dirty. But he became the most decorated pilot in America. In the same strange sort of reversal, he started out with no interest in space and ended up training astronauts. In the 1950s, when space was mentioned, he would dismiss it as a place where he wouldn't be flying, but sitting in a thing controlled by someone else. No doubt the views were pretty, but he couldn't have cared less. And anyway, he had no degree. His ideas changed as the government began to press the space programme and America, in his view, fell far behind the Soviets in developing space technology.

1941年，他作为一名机械师加入空军，脚踏实地，轻松自如，因为他多年来一直在修理发动机，水泵和他父亲用来钻探天然气的电缆工具。他参加飞行训练主要是因为飞行员的胳膊下有漂亮的女孩，手也不脏。但他成了美国最受尊敬的飞行员。同样奇怪的是，他一开始对太空毫无兴趣，最后却训练宇航员。在20世纪50年代，当提到太空时，他会认为它是一个他不会飞行的地方，而是坐在别人控制的东西里。毫无疑问，景色很美，但他却毫不在意。不管怎样，他没有学位。随着政府开始推动太空计划，在他看来，美国在发展空间技术方面远远落后于苏联。