1957年，前苏联在今哈萨克斯坦境内的拜科努尔卫星发射基地发射了人类第一颗人造卫星——Sputnik（斯普尼克）。2007年10月24日18时05分，中国在西昌卫星发射中心用“长征三号甲”运载火箭将中国自主研制的第一颗月球探测卫星——“嫦娥一号”成功送入太空，标志着中国的绕月探测工程迈出了重要一步。
对于大多数人来说，无论是拜科努尔、西昌还是其他的卫星发射基地，都是神秘的“军事禁地”。现在，就让我们一同走近拜科努尔这个前苏联重要的航天发射基地所在的城市，一同来了解它在苏联解体后的发展情况。
Baikonur, 2)Kazakhstan—in this remote and rusting town on the barren 3)steppes of Central Asia, the space race and the 4)Sputnik era seem much more than a memory.
哈萨克斯坦的拜科努尔，这偏僻旧镇位于亚洲中部荒芜的西伯利亚大草原上。在这里，太空竞赛与“斯普尼克”的年代似乎不只是一场追忆。
Rockets still pierce the heavens in a 5)halo of smoke during launches, and engineers and military men still 6)crack open bottles of vodka to celebrate a successful launch. What has changed are the passengers. Nowadays Baikonur embraces the world, from wealthy space tourists to the world’s first Malaysian 7)cosmonaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, who blasted off for the international space station on Oct. 10, 2007.
在这里，仍旧可以看到火箭划破长空，烟氲四起，仍有工程师与军方人士在发射任务成功之际开伏特加酒大举庆祝。唯一不同的是升空的乘客。现在的拜科努尔向世界敞开怀抱，从富有的太空游客，到2007年10月10日飞赴国际空间站的世界首位马来西亚宇航员谢 赫 穆扎哈尔 舒库尔，都从这里升空启航。
The city itself is a rusting 8)relic of the golden age of Russian rocketry, yet if anything, its place in the space industry is heading toward expansion. For at least four years after the space shuttle program ends in 2010, the United States will completely depend on Russia—and Baikonur—to send its crews to the international space station.
整个拜科努尔可谓是俄罗斯火箭技术黄金时代遗存下来的锈迹斑斑的纪念物，如果说这地方有什么值得一提的，那就是它在航天产业中的地位正日益提升。等到2010年美国太空穿梭计划终结之后，至少有4年的时间美国将完全依赖俄罗斯——还有拜科努尔——发射火箭运送宇航员前往国际空间站。
Facilities and equipment are workable but old. Remnants of demolished buildings and pieces of rusty metal dot the landscape along the roads to the 9)launch pads. Dozens of apartment blocks that were abandoned after the 1991 Soviet collapse stand in rows like tombstones, their windows bricked up.
那里的设施设备都是现成可用的，只是有些旧。前往火箭发射台的路上，只见残垣败瓦，生了锈的金属碎片成堆，点缀两旁。1991年苏联解体，许多公寓大楼从此尘封废弃，一栋栋如墓碑般整齐矗立着，窗户全用砖头堵上了。
Life and work in Baikonur and its 10)cosmodrome are also pretty much what they were in the Soviet era. The town of 70,000—unbearably hot in summer, freezing cold in winter and dusty all year around—is isolated from the outside world by hundreds of miles of scrubland.
拜科努尔人如今的生活、工作以及当地的航天发射中心，基本上都还是前苏联时代的老样子。小城有7万人口，夏天酷热难耐，冬天严寒冰冻，全年尘土飞扬，延绵百里的灌木丛林将其与外界隔绝。
Baikonur, once one of the Soviet Union’s most secret cities, is still closed to outsiders and surrounded by 11)barbed wire. Armed soldiers at checkpoints guard dozens of launch pads, five tracking control centers and a missile test range.
拜科努尔曾经是前苏联最秘密的城市之一，而今，它仍被重重带刺的铁丝网包围着，并对外人封闭。各个检查站有全副武装的士兵站岗，守卫着数十个发射台、5个火箭跟踪控制中心和一个导弹测试场。
The continuity is especially striking because the 1991 collapse left the cosmodrome stranded in what had become a foreign country, the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. “We did not know what country we belonged to, but we kept on launching rockets,” said Sergei Kuzmin, a former military officer, now a city clerk.
这种延续性实在惊人。要知道，1991年苏联解体，前哈萨克苏维埃社会主义共和国顿成一国，从而使得拜科努尔卫星发射基地陷入困境。“那时我们都不知道自己属于哪个国家，但我们仍继续发射火箭。”现在是一名政府职员的前军官赛格·库兹明说。
Russia rents Baikonur from Kazakhstan for $115 million a year. The mayor is jointly appointed by the Russian and Kazakh presidents.
俄罗斯现在以每年1亿1500万美元的高价向哈萨克斯坦租借拜科努尔。拜科努尔市的市长由俄罗斯总统和哈萨克斯坦总统共同任命。
“We live under two governments, but unfortunately get only one salary,” Kuzmin noted 12)wryly as he walked the freshly renovated corridors of city hall.
“我们受两个政府管辖，可惜就只拿一份薪水，”库兹明苦笑着自嘲，在刚翻新过的市政厅走廊上走着。
As Russia’s economy has recovered and oil prices swell, Moscow has begun spending on Baikonur again. The city also benefits from Russia’s booming trade in commercial satellite launches and space tourism. In April 2007, Charles Simonyi, the U.S. billionaire who helped design Microsoft Word and Excel, became the world’s fifth such tourist, spending $25 million to visit the space station.
随着俄罗斯的经济逐步复苏加上油价飙升，莫斯科方面重新开始往拜科努尔大洒金钱。小城同时也得益于俄罗斯在商业卫星升空和太空旅游生意的日益兴旺。2007年4月，曾经参与设计微软Word和Excel软件的美国亿万富豪查尔斯·西蒙尼成为了全球第5位太空游客，花费2500万美元参观国际空间站。
So despite its Soviet character—or perhaps partly because of it—Baikonur remains a magnet for Russians and Kazakhs looking for a decent job.
所以，尽管拜科努尔还带着前苏联的气息——也许多少正是因为这股气息，对于想找份待遇不错的工作的俄罗斯人和哈萨克斯坦人来说，这儿仍具有巨大的吸引力。
In Baikonur there’s free healthcare, state jobs, and apartments still owned by the administration and reserved for those working for the city or the launch complex. After 20 years, workers get free apartments and land lots in Russia.
拜科努尔有公费医疗、政府公职，还有给市政公务员或者在发射区工作的人员居住的，政府持有产权的公寓楼。20年后，工作人员可以在俄罗斯无偿获得住房和土地。
13)Busts and monuments of figures such as 14)Gagarin and 15)Sergei Korolyov, the father of the Soviet space program, dot the streets and parks.
街道上、公园里，纪念第一个进入宇宙空间的前苏联宇航员加加林和前苏联太空项目之父谢尔盖·科罗廖夫等人的半身像和纪念碑点缀其间，随处可见。
Baikonur lies by the 16)Syrdarya River, dangerously close to the 17)Aral Sea. Once the world’s fourth-largest inland body of water, the sea has turned into a dust bowl of toxic salts because of massive Soviet irrigation projects. Winds carry 18)caustic clouds of the stuff through Baikonur, poisoning the air. Minerals in the water table kill anything bigger than a desert shrub. So trees have to be planted in massive concrete tubs of soil sunk into the ground.
拜科努尔位于锡尔河畔，靠近咸海，危机四伏。曾是世界第四大内陆湖的咸海，由于前苏联的大规模灌溉工程，现在已成了富含有毒盐分的垃圾湖。有毒物质形成具有腐蚀性的烟雾，随风飘过拜科努尔，污染那里的空气。地下水所含的矿物质会把任何比沙漠灌木还要大的植物毁掉。所以，要种树就得先往地里置入巨型土盆。
“Everything was top secret, but the town itself was amazing,” said Tamara Tarasenko, 60, a doctor who moved here in 1971. “There were no 19)bandits, no crime.”
“一切都属于一级机密，不过这个小城本身也是一个很神奇的地方，”现年60岁的医生塔玛拉·塔拉申科说道，他于1971年搬到这里。“那时候没有什么强盗，也没任何罪案。”
By the 1980s Baikonur’s population approached 100,000. Despite strict regulations and constant 20)vigilance by 21)plainclothes 22)KGB agents, the engineers and military officers in Baikonur still enjoyed a “certain liberalism” not tolerated elsewhere, said Bryantseva of the city administration. The reason was Baikonur’s importance for Soviet propaganda. This was where the Soviets launched spacecraft headed for the moon, Venus and Mars, as well as cosmonauts headed for earth orbit.
上世纪80年代，拜科努尔的人口达到10万。尽管严规诸多，还受到来自便衣克格勃密探的重重监视，这里的工程人员和军官还是享有别处难得的“一定程度的自由”，市政府发言人布里彦萨娃说。原因就在于拜科努尔对于前苏联的对外宣传意义重大。这里可是前苏联发射太空船前往月球、金星、火星，还有宇航员升空环绕地球轨道航行的基地。
The town is expected to remain the world’s primary space gate for decades to come. “We are not a provincial town that will drown in the desert,” said Bryantseva.
在未来的几十年，这座小城将继续作为世界主要的太空之门而存在。“我们不是一个轻易就销声匿迹的边城小镇，”布里彦萨娃说道。
