美国宇航局宇航员将在太空投票

美国宇航局宇航员将在太空投票

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

美国宇航局宇航员凯特·鲁宾斯周三在莫斯科郊外的加加林宇航员训练中心参加了联盟号的资格考试。

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.

在选举日那天，美国宇航局宇航员凯特·鲁宾斯将会在离她最近的投票点200多英里的上空。但她仍计划在太空投票。

"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."

“参与我们的民主至关重要，”鲁宾斯告诉美联社。“我们认为能够在太空投票是一种荣耀。”

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.

拥有斯坦福大学癌症生物学博士学位的鲁宾斯是第一个在太空进行DNA测序的人，她目前正在为即将在国际空间站执行的6个月任务进行训练。

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.

在空间站投票就像在地球上任何地方投票缺席的人一样，只不过不是依靠美国邮政服务来递送选票，鲁宾斯将从休斯顿的任务控制中心收到电子转寄的选票。

"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.

史密森国家航空航天博物馆在2018年解释说:“通过电子邮件向他们每个人发送一套独特的证书，宇航员就可以获得自己的选票，进行投票，并将选票向地球传输。”

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

然后选票被送到县书记官那里进行制表。

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，在比尔·克林顿总统和鲍勃·多尔的总统竞选中，得克萨斯州一名议员得知宇航员约翰·布拉哈不能投票后，美国宇航员能够在上空投票已经有20多年历史了。当时，布拉哈正在国际空间站的前身——俄罗斯和平号空间站服役。

"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.

共和党州参议员迈克·杰克逊在2008年对NPR的内尔·格林菲尔德博伊斯说:“他对不能做到这一点表达了一点失望。”

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，从太空投票从来就不是一个真正的问题，因为美国宇航局的宇航员通常只花不超过两周的时间执行航天飞机任务。但随着空间站的出现，美国人有时一次要执行几个月的任务。

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.

于是一项新的法律诞生了。杰克逊说:“我可以证明一个人的选票是多么重要，因为在我的第一次选举中，在2.6万多张选票中，我以多出7票的优势获胜。”

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，德克萨斯州的立法者批准了这项措施，当时的州长乔治·W·布什将其签署为法律。同年，宇航员大卫·沃尔夫成为第一个“在漂浮时投票”的美国人。

"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，沃尔夫在接受《大西洋月刊》采访时表示:“我在太空中独自投票，非常孤独，是那里唯一一个说英语的人，能有一张来自美国的英语选票真是太好了。”“这让我感觉离地球更近了，好像地球上的人真的很关心我。”

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."

大多数美国宇航局的宇航员住在休斯顿，所以自从德克萨斯州的法律通过后，几个宇航员可以在太空上投票了。这甚至不是鲁宾斯第一次行使她的轨道特权;她也在2016年的总统选举中从空间站投票——把她的地址标注为“近地轨道”

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

“如果我们能在太空中做到，那么我相信人们也能在地面上做到。”鲁宾斯说。