(Credit: portal.myoops.org)
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自古以来人类就对太空充满痴迷和幻想，本期TED的演讲者安杰洛•韦尔默伦（Angelo Vermeulen）通过自己的经历，向我们讲述了他们如何在地球上模拟外太空的生存环境，帮助人们认识在外太空生存的未来。
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How to Go to Space Without Having to Go to Space
如何不去太空就能体验到太空生活
I am a multi-disciplinary. As a scientist, I’ve been a crew commander for a NASA Mars simulation last year. And as an artist, I create multicultural community art all over the planet. And, recently, I’ve actually been combining both. But let me first talk a little more about that NASA mission.
我的身份有些复杂，作为科学家，去年曾担任美国宇航局火星模拟项目的指挥官；作为艺术家，在全世界创作多元文化的社群艺术。最近，我一直试图将二者结合起来，在此之前，我想先谈谈美国宇航局的任务。
This is the HI-SEAS program. HI-SEAS is a NASA funded planetary surface analog on the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. And it’s a research program that is specifically designed to study the effects of long-term isolation of small groups. I lived in this dome for four months with a crew of six. Very interesting experience, of course.
这个项目就是HI-SEAS（夏威夷太空探险类比模拟项目）计划，由美国宇航局资助，在夏威夷的莫纳罗亚火山开展行星表面模拟，专门研究长期隔离对小群体的影响。我和小组中其他六人在这个圆顶建筑里生活了四个月，是一次非常有趣的经历。
We did all kinds of research. Our main research was exactly a food study. But apart from that food study, developing a new food system for astronauts living in deep space, we also did all kinds of other research. We did extravehicular activities, as you can see here, wearing mock up space suits. But we also had our chores and lots of other stuff to do like questionnaires at the end of every day, busy work.
我们做了大量研究，主要是食品研究，为在遥远太空中生活的宇航员开发新的食品系统。除此之外，我们也做其他研究。如你所见，我们还身着模拟太空服执行舱外活动。当然，我们还有自己的杂务和其他的琐事，比如每天结束时的问卷调查，工作十分忙碌。
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Now as you can imagine, it’s quite challenging to live with just a small group of people in a small space for a long time. There are all kinds of psychological challenges, how to keep a team together in these circumstances, right? how to deal with the warping of time you start to sense when you are living in these circumstances, sleep problems otherwise, etc.
现在，可想而知，在狭小的空间里和一小群人长期生活在一起是多么具有挑战性。有各种各样的心理上的挑战：在这种环境下如何让大家保持齐心协力？又如何处理在这种环境下生活时感受到的时间扭曲？还有睡眠问题？诸如此类。
But also learned a lot. I learned a lot about how individual crew members actually cope with that situation like this: how you can keep the crew productive and happy? For example, giving them a good deal of autonomy is a good trick to do that. And honestly, I learned a lot about leadership. Because I was a crew commander.
但这也能让人受益匪浅。我知道了如何应对这样的情况，比如：怎样让队员保持积极快乐？诀窍之一就是给他们较大的自主权。而且说实话，我学到了很多关于领导能力的知识，毕竟我还是个指挥官。
So, doing this mission, I really started thinking more deeply about our future in outer space. We will venture into outer space and will start inhabiting outer space. I have no doubt about it. It might take 50 years or it might take 500 years, but, you know, it’s going to happen nevertheless.
所以，在做这个任务的同时，我开始更深入地思考人类在外太空的未来。我们会探索外太空并定居，对此我深信不疑，也许是在50年后，也许是在500年后，但是，那一天终将来临。
So I came up with a new art project called Seeker. And the Seeker project is actually challenging communities all over the world to come up with starship prototypes that reinvention human habitation and survival. That’s the core of the project.
所以我开发了一个新的艺术项目，叫做搜寻者。这个项目实际上是在向世界各地的人们发起挑战，让他们构想星际飞船的原型，重新定义人类的居住和生存环境，这也是该项目的核心所在。
Now one important thing, this is not a dystopian project. This is not about “Oh my God, the world is going wrong and we have to escape because you know we need another future somewhere else.” No. The project is basically inviting people to take a step away from earth pilot constraints and as such reimagine our future. And it’s really helpful and it works really well.
现在，需要声明的是这不是反乌托邦项目，不是那种“哦，天哪，世界没救了，我们必须逃离，我们得在其他地方创造未来。”不是这样的，这一点很重要。搜寻者项目其实是在邀请人们踏出一步，冲破地球的束缚，以此重新想象我们的未来。这真的很有帮助，而且效果非常好。
So that’s really the important part of what we’re doing. Now, in this project, I am using a co-creation approach, which is a slightly different approach of what you would expect from many artists. Essentially dropping a basic idea into a group, into community, people start gravitating to the idea and together we shape and build the arts work. It is a little bit like termites, really.
所以，这就是我们所做的最重要的部分。目前这个项目采用共同创造的手段，跟你预期中其他艺术家的方法略有不同。从本质上来说，就是把一个简单的概念丢给一个群体或团体，人们开始对这个想法感兴趣，然后一起塑造这个艺术作品，有点像白蚁的工作模式。
We just work together. And even, for example, an architect visits what we’re doing, sometimes has a bit of hard time understanding how we built without a master plan. We always come up with these fantastic large-scale sculptures that actually we can also inhabit.
我们一起面对挑战，甚至连建筑师参观时，都会有点难以理解，我们是如何在没有整体规划的情况下进行建造的。我们总能成功做出这些巨型的建筑，而且还能居住其中。
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The first version was done in Belgium and Holland was built with a team of almost 50 people. This is the second iteration of that same project, but in Slovenia, in a different country. And the new group was like “You know, we are going to do the architecture differently” so they took away the architecture. They kept the base of the artwork and they built an entirely new, much more biomorphic architecture on top of that. And that’s another crucial part of the project. It’s an evolving artwork, evolving architecture.
第一版由近50人的团队建造，于比利时、荷兰落成。该项目的二次改造在斯洛文尼亚完成，新的小组决定另辟蹊径，所以带走了原作，保留其基本结构，并在此基础上建造了一个全新的、更具生物形态的建筑。这也是这一项目的另一个关键部分，即这不仅是一个不断完善的艺术作品，也是一座不断改造的建筑。
This was the last version that was just presented a few weeks ago in Holland, which was using caravans as modules to build a starship. We bought some second-hand caravans, cut them open, and reassembled them into a starship. Now, when we’re thinking about starships, we’re not just approaching it as a technological challenge. We’re really looking at it as a combination of three systems: ecology, people, and technology.
这是几周前在荷兰展出的最新版本，以面包车为组件建造的星际飞船。我们购置了几辆二手面包车，把它们切开，重新组装成一艘星际飞船。现在，想到星际飞船时，我们不仅将其视为技术难题，更切实地将它看作生态、人类和科技三个系统的组合。
So there’s always an nonnegligible strong ecological component in the project. Here you can see aquaponic systems that are actually surrounding the astronauts. So they constantly in contact with the foods, or a part of the food that they’re eating.
因此，项目中一直存在着不容忽视且至关重要的生态系统组成部分。在这里，宇航员四周都是共生系统，这样他们就能不断地接触到自己所吃的食物。
Now a very typical thing for this product project is that we run our own isolation missions inside these art and design projects. We actually lock ourselves up for multiple days on end and test what we built. And this is, for example, on the right-hand side you can see and isolation mission in the museum of modern art in Ljubljana in Slovenia, where six artists and designers locked themselves up, I was part of that, for four days inside the museum.
目前，这个项目的典型特征是，我们要在这些艺术设计作品中执行隔离任务。实际上就是连续多天把自己关到里面，检测自己建造的建筑。例如，可以看到，右图是在斯洛文尼的亚卢布尔雅那现代艺术博物馆的隔离任务，六位艺术家和设计师把自己关起来，在博物馆里生活了四天，我也是其中一员。
Of course, obviously, it’s very performative and very strong experience for all of us. Now the next version of the project that is currently being developed together with Camilo Rodriguez Beltran, who is also a TED fellow in the Atacama Desert in Chile. A magical place.
当然，这是我们所有人努力的见证，也是一次深刻的体验。现在，这个项目的下一版将与卡米洛•罗德里格斯•贝尔特兰一起开发，他也是TED的成员，地点在智利的阿塔卡马沙漠，那是一个神奇的地方。
First of all, it’s really considered a Mars analog. It really does look like Mars in certain locations and has been used by NASA to test equipment. And it has a long history of being connected to space through observations of the stars. It’s now home to ALMA, this large telescope that’s being developed there. But, also, it’s the driest location on the planet.
首先，这里很适合模拟火星，某些地方看起来确实跟火星很像，美国宇航局也在此测试设备。而且，这里与太空联系紧密，观星历史悠久。现在是ALMA大型望远镜的所在地，也是地球上最干燥的地方。
And that makes it extremely interesting to build our project, because suddenly sustainability is something we have to explore fully. We have no other option, so I’m very curious to see what’s going to happen. Now a specific thing for this particular version of the project is that I am very interested to see how we can connect with local population, native population.
突然间我们必须得充分地探索可持续性，没有其他选择，这就使得项目的创建变得有趣起来，所以我很好奇未来的走向。现在，对项目的这一版来说，我比较关心的是如何与当地的原住民联系起来。
These people have been living there for a very long time and can be considered experts in sustainability and so I am very interested to see what we can learn from them and have an input of indigenous knowledge into space exploration. So we’re trying to redefine how we look at our future in outer space by exploring integration, biology, technology, and people by using co-creation approach and by using and exploring local traditions and to see how we can learn from the past integrate that into our deep future.
他们已经在当地生活了相当长的时间，可以说是可持续性领域的专家，所以我很想看看从他们身上能学到什么，并将当地的知识应用到太空探索中。也就是说，我们正试图通过共同创造的方式探索一体化、生物、技术和人类，重新定义我们对外太空未来的态度；通过利用、探究当地的传统看我们如何能温故知新，并将其应用到更深层次未来的探索中去。
