美國宇航局宇航員將在太空投票

美國宇航局宇航員將在太空投票

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins participates in Soyuz qualification exams on Wednesday at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center just outside Moscow.

美國宇航局宇航員凱特·魯賓斯周三在莫斯科郊外的加加林宇航員訓(xùn)練中心參加了聯(lián)盟號的資格考試。

On Election Day, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins will be more than 200 miles above her nearest polling place. But she's still planning to vote — from space.

在選舉日那天，美國宇航局宇航員凱特·魯賓斯將會在離她最近的投票點200多英里的上空。但她仍計劃在太空投票。

"It's critical to participate in our democracy," Rubins told The Associated Press. "We consider it an honor to be able to vote from space."

“參與我們的民主至關(guān)重要，”魯賓斯告訴美聯(lián)社。“我們認(rèn)為能夠在太空投票是一種榮耀。”

Rubins, who has a doctorate in cancer biology from Stanford and was the first person to sequence DNA in space, is currently training for her upcoming six-month mission on the International Space Station.

擁有斯坦福大學(xué)癌癥生物學(xué)博士學(xué)位的魯賓斯是第一個在太空進行DNA測序的人，她目前正在為即將在國際空間站執(zhí)行的6個月任務(wù)進行訓(xùn)練。

Voting from the space station is similar to voting absentee from anyplace on the planet — except instead of relying on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver the ballot, Rubins will get hers forwarded electronically from Mission Control in Houston.

在空間站投票就像在地球上任何地方投票缺席的人一樣，只不過不是依靠美國郵政服務(wù)來遞送選票，魯賓斯將從休斯頓的任務(wù)控制中心收到電子轉(zhuǎn)寄的選票。

"Using a set of unique credentials sent to each of them by e-mail, astronauts can access their ballots, cast their votes, and downlink them back down to Earth," the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum explained in 2018.

史密森國家航空航天博物館在2018年解釋說:“通過電子郵件向他們每個人發(fā)送一套獨特的證書，宇航員就可以獲得自己的選票，進行投票，并將選票向地球傳輸。”

The ballot is then sent to the county clerk for tabulation.

然后選票被送到縣書記官那里進行制表。

American astronauts have been able to cast ballots from above for over two decades now, ever since a Texas lawmaker learned that astronaut John Blaha couldn't vote in the 1996 presidential race between President Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. At the time, Blaha was serving on Russia's Mir Space Station, a predecessor to the ISS.

1996年，在比爾·克林頓總統(tǒng)和鮑勃·多爾的總統(tǒng)競選中，得克薩斯州一名議員得知宇航員約翰·布拉哈不能投票后，美國宇航員能夠在上空投票已經(jīng)有20多年歷史了。當(dāng)時，布拉哈正在國際空間站的前身——俄羅斯和平號空間站服役。

"He expressed a little bit disappointment in not being able to do that," Republican state Sen. Mike Jackson told NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce in 2008.

共和黨州參議員邁克·杰克遜在2008年對NPR的內(nèi)爾·格林菲爾德博伊斯說:“他對不能做到這一點表達(dá)了一點失望。”

Voting from space had never really been an issue before then, because NASA astronauts typically spent no more than about two weeks on shuttle missions. But with the advent of the space station, Americans were sometimes on missions for months at a time.

在那之前，從太空投票從來就不是一個真正的問題，因為美國宇航局的宇航員通常只花不超過兩周的時間執(zhí)行航天飛機任務(wù)。但隨著空間站的出現(xiàn)，美國人有時一次要執(zhí)行幾個月的任務(wù)。

So a new law was born. "I can attest to how important one person's vote is, because my first election, I won by seven votes out of over 26,000," Jackson said.

于是一項新的法律誕生了。杰克遜說:“我可以證明一個人的選票是多么重要，因為在我的第一次選舉中，在2.6萬多張選票中，我以多出7票的優(yōu)勢獲勝。”

Texas lawmakers approved the measure in 1997, and then-Gov. George W. Bush signed it into law. That same year, astronaut David Wolf became the first American to "vote while you float".

1997年，德克薩斯州的立法者批準(zhǔn)了這項措施，當(dāng)時的州長喬治·W·布什將其簽署為法律。同年，宇航員大衛(wèi)·沃爾夫成為第一個“在漂浮時投票”的美國人。

"I voted alone up in space, very alone, the only English speaker up there, and it was nice to have an English ballot, something from America," Wolf told The Atlantic in 2016. "It made me feel closer to the Earth and like the people of Earth actually cared about me up there."

2016年，沃爾夫在接受《大西洋月刊》采訪時表示:“我在太空中獨自投票，非常孤獨，是那里唯一一個說英語的人，能有一張來自美國的英語選票真是太好了。”“這讓我感覺離地球更近了，好像地球上的人真的很關(guān)心我。”

Most NASA astronauts live in Houston, so since that Texas law was passed, several astronauts have been able to cast ballots from above. This isn't even the first time Rubins has exercised her orbital privilege; she also voted in the 2016 presidential election from the space station — listing her address as "low-Earth orbit."

大多數(shù)美國宇航局的宇航員住在休斯頓，所以自從德克薩斯州的法律通過后，幾個宇航員可以在太空上投票了。這甚至不是魯賓斯第一次行使她的軌道特權(quán);她也在2016年的總統(tǒng)選舉中從空間站投票——把她的地址標(biāo)注為“近地軌道”

"If we can do it from space, then I believe folks can do it from the ground, too." Rubins said.

“如果我們能在太空中做到，那么我相信人們也能在地面上做到。”魯賓斯說。