太空來電鬧烏龍 宇航員撥錯號找"地球"

He may have the right stuff, but he got the wrong digits.

儘管他有一身本事，可還是弄錯了號碼。

Timothy Peake, a former British Army Air Corps officer and current European Space Agency astronaut aboard the International Space Station, phoned home to a wrong number on Thursday.

前英國陸軍航空隊(British Army Air Corps)軍官蒂莫西·皮克(Timothy Peake)目前是歐洲航天局(European Space Agency)駐國際空間站(International Space Station)宇航員。他週四給家裏打電話時撥錯了電話號碼。

After failing to connect, he took his flub to Twitter, posting: “I’d like to apologise to the lady I just called by mistake saying ‘Hello, is this planet Earth?’ - not a prank a wrong number!”

皮克沒能與家人接通電話，於是在Twitter上發帖承認錯誤：“我剛纔打錯電話了，還說‘你好，是地球嗎？’我想向那位女士道歉。這不是惡作劇……只是撥錯了號碼！”

It was not clear if the person who answered understood how long-distance the call actually was.

還不清楚那名接電話的女士是否知道，這通長途電話實際上有多麼長途。

Responding to Mr. Peake’s tweet, one Twitter user wanted to know what the space station’s area code was. But even without that, Earthlings can connect with the station: Its amateur radio frequencies are publicly available, and anyone with the proper equipment and the required radio license can try to call when it passes 250 miles above.

一名Twitter用戶回覆了皮克的帖子，詢問空間站的區號。但即便沒有區號，地球上的人也可以與空間站取得聯繫：國際空間站的業餘無線電頻率已經對外公佈，只要有適當的設備和所需的無線電執照，就可以在空間站經過時，嘗試給距地面250英里（約400公里）的空間站打電話。

Mr. Peake, 43, should probably be forgiven for his lack of mastery of ship-to-shore dialing, because he is a recent arrival to the International Space Station. He is the first publicly funded British astronaut, and his voyage to the space station on Dec. 15 was closely watched in Britain, where cost-conscious governments have generally avoided supporting human spaceflight. His job during his six-month mission is running science experiments, he has said on his blog, and in his spare time, he is training for the London Marathon.

43歲的皮克還沒有掌控船對岸撥號的技巧，是因爲他最近纔到達國際空間站，這一點應該原諒他。皮克是第一個獲得公共資助的英國宇航員，他於12月15日啓程前往空間站，整個航程在英國受到密切關注，在這個國家，注重節省成本的政府通常會避免對載人航天計劃予以支持。他在博客上表示，在執行爲期六個月的任務期間，他的工作是開展科學實驗，業餘時間進行訓練，爲參加倫敦馬拉松做準備。