这位女性负责指挥美国太空飞船的飞行
2015-12-23 11:21阅读：
内容来源：分享美国 地址链接：
http://go.usa.gov/ckMmh
艾丽丝∙鲍曼（Alice Bowman）是美国国家航空航天局（NASA）新地平线号（New
Horizons）操作中心负责人。新地平线号是第一个详细探测矮行星冥王星（Pluto）及其卫星的太空探测器。鲍曼作为这项任务的飞行操作主管，负责指挥飞行器以每小时5万公里的速度在太空飞行。太空探测器距离地球很远，对飞行器发出的软件指令即使以光速发送，也需4个半小时才能传递到位。
鲍曼和团队的工作人员不仅要保持新地平线号的航向，而且还必须规划一条能够按照科学家的要求观察星球的路线。2014年12月，团队人员唤醒了蛰伏多日的新地平线号，此后始终为规划观测冥王星的最后方案进行努力。
从新地平线号上第一次详细观察冥王星的图像，摄于2015年7月。
(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest
Research Institute)
鲍曼说，冥王星的第一批图像让他们激动万分。科学家们对星球表面
多变的地形 ……和大气的
不同层次感到惊奇。
科学们已经发现星球上可能的冰火山以及表明地质形态活跃的其他迹象，其中包括像陀螺一样围绕星球旋转的卫星。
美国国家航空航天局行星科学部主任吉姆∙格林（Jim Green）说，“新地平线的使命完全颠覆了我们原来对冥王星的了解。”
今后几十年，
这些令人惊奇的观测结果将为科学家等各方面人员提供有价值的研究资料，可以了解各类星球形成的大量信息，其中也包括地球。
最初的激情引导你实现梦想
鲍曼团队的女性成员超过美国国家航空航天局以往大多数执行任务的团队。当采访人员提到这一点的时候，鲍曼感到很正常。她说，“我关心的是招集在各自工作的领域最优秀的人员，其中几乎一半是女性只是一个巧合。”
鲍曼怎样开始
她自己的 职业生涯呢?美国的太空项目激励她选择了这一行。另外，
星际迷航（Star Trek）等电视节目也对她产生了影响。她总是希望进行探索
，并且认为万事皆有可能。她没有完全成为一名
宇航员，但是她现在正操纵着飞船在50亿公里以外的太空飞行。
她说，“你如果坚持最初的激情，就能实现梦想。”
鲍曼说，新地平线应该不断传送有关的科学数据，直到2030年代，可以给人们足够的时间
更新对数据的解读
，也可以通过
#PlutoFlyby了解这次使命的进展。
目前新地平线号将继续向远离地球的方向飞行，如果进展顺利的话，可在2019年提供海王星以远柯伊伯带（Kuiper
Belt）的近距离观察结果。据说那里聚集了很多小行星、彗星和太阳系形成时期遗留的其他残冰结构。
期待更多的新发现
新地平线号太空飞船继续向外太阳系飞行。图为飞行途中拍摄的冥王星图像。(NASA/Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research
Institute)
“I’m still waiting to be bored,” says Alice Bowman. With her job,
she’ll have to wait a long time.
Bowman heads the NASA team that guides New Horizons, the first
spacecraft
to get a good look at dwarf planet Pluto and its
moons. Bowman’s driving, but her vehicle moves at 50,000 kilometers
per hour. It’s so far away that even at the speed of light the
team’s software instructions take four and a half hours to reach
the spacecraft.
Just keeping New Horizons on course isn’t enough. Bowman and her
team must set a path that allows the spacecraft to make the
observations requested by scientists. Beginning in December 2014,
when the team woke New Horizons from hibernation, they worked hard
to choreograph its final approach to Pluto.
The world’s first good look at Pluto,
from the New Horizons spacecraft, July 2015 (NASA/Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research
Institute)
The first images of Pluto “kept us fired up,” Bowman said.
“Scientists were amazed by the variations of
the
terrain … [the]
different
layers of Pluto’s atmosphere.”
Already scientists have
spotted possible ice volcanoes and
other hints of an active geology, even moons around Pluto that
behave
like spinning tops.
“The New Horizons mission has taken what we thought we knew about
Pluto and turned it upside down,” said Jim Green, director of
planetary science at NASA.
Scientists, students and dreamers will pore over these
surprising
findings for decades to come and could learn a lot about
how
different planets formed, including our own.
An early inspiration will get you through
Bowman was surprised when interviewers pointed out that her team
included more women than most previous NASA missions. “My focus is
on hiring people who are best in their fields,”
she said.
“It just happened that almost half were women.”
And how did Bowman start on
her path? The
U.S. space program inspired her. So did TV shows like
Star Trek. She always wanted to be an explorer and
thought that anything was possible. She didn’t quite
become an astronaut, but she does steer a
spaceship, even if it’s from over 5
billion kilometers
away.
“If you hold on to an early inspiration,” she says, “it will help
you get through.”
Bowman adds that New Horizon should keep sending back scientific
data well into the 2030s, giving you plenty of time to
brush up on
your coding or follow the
mission
at
#PlutoFlyby.
For now, New Horizons will head still farther from Earth. With
luck, in 2019 it will give us an up-close look at the
Kuiper
Belt, a region beyond Neptune believed to hold many asteroids,
comets and other icy remnants from the formation of the solar
system.
More
discoveries
await.
The New Horizons spacecraft looks
back at Pluto as it flies farther into the outer solar system.
(NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest
Research Institute)
