肯德基要上天 汉堡踏上太空之旅

对于肯德基来说，“好吃到飞起来”再也不是夸张的比喻了。近日，为了宣传自家新推出的鸡肉汉堡，肯德基和美国航空公司 World View 合作，用巨型太空气球将一个汉堡送入了18.3千米~22.9千米的平流层。这一飞行高度是民航飞行高度的两倍。

The moment we have all been waiting for finally arrived: A KFC chicken sandwich launched to the stratosphere suspended under a giant space balloon.
我们翘首以盼的时刻终于到来了：一个悬挂在巨型太空气球下的肯德基鸡肉汉堡被发射到了平流层。

Seriously.
真的没骗你。

The spaceflight company World View launched the Zinger chicken sandwich to its position 77,000 feet above the surface of the Earth at 9:11 am ET on Jun 29. A silly video narrated by current Colonel Sanders Rob Lowe honors the "historic" launch.
航天公司World View于美国东部时间6月29日上午9点11分将肯德基劲脆鸡肉汉堡发射到距离地球表面77000英尺（约为23470米）的高空中。肯德基老爷爷扮演者罗伯•罗伊解说的一段滑稽视频记录了这一“历史性”的时刻。

While the KFC sandwich launch is extremely goofy, it's also important for World View.
虽然发射肯德基汉堡的行为非常滑稽，但是此举对于World View公司来说意义重大。

This mission marks the first multi-day test of the company's Stratollite system, which makes use of a large balloon that lofts its payload - in this case, the Zinger sandwich - up high above Earth.
该项任务是World View首次对其Stratollite系统进行多日飞行测试。Stratollite系统利用巨型气球将负载物送上高空。这一次，他们发射的是一个汉堡。

Eventually, World View hopes that this space system can be used to take images of the Earth, and provide internet service and other applications to people around the globe thanks to its ability to stay up in the stratosphere for multiple days.
World View希望最终可以利用Stratollite系统拍摄地球的照片，并凭借其能在平流层逗留多天的能力，为世界各地的人们提供互联网及其他应用服务。

"We’re going to learn a lot about long-duration stratospheric flight, while at the same time developing and testing some core systems capabilities that we’ve never had before," Jane Poynter, World View CEO, said in an email before launch.
该公司首席执行官简•波因特在发射前发邮件称：“我们将探索关于平流层长时飞行的各种知识，同时开发和测试一些前所未有的核心系统能力。”

"For example, this is the first time we’ll be testing our solar power system, which is the on-board, regenerative power system that will allow the Stratollite vehicle to ultimately fly for months at a time without interruption. We’re also developing and testing a real-time HD video downlink system, among other critical systems improvements."
“比如，这次我们将首次测试太阳能发电系统。Stratollite搭载的可再生发电系统可以让Stratollite太空车单次不间断飞行数月。我们还在开发测试高清实时视频向地传输系统，以及其他重要的系统升级。”

据悉，World View 原本希望Stratollite能够滞空4天，以便开展各方面测试。但不幸的是，由于一个气球高度控制系统发生轻微泄漏（a small leak in an altitude-control balloon system），这次飞行时间仅维持了17小时。

英文来源：Mashable
翻译&编辑：董静
审校：丹妮