ROCKET LAUNCHES are always spectacular(壮观的，引人注目的), but this was something else(不同寻常的事，特别的事). On May 28th Blue Origin, a rocket firm owned by Jeff Bezos, was testing one of its New Glenn rockets at Cape Canaveral, in Florida. As its engines ignited(点燃，引燃) a series of flashes could be seen. Then the entire rocket detonated(引爆，爆炸), leaving an angry mushroom cloud(蘑菇云) looming(隐约出现，逼近) above the launch site.
火箭发射总是壮观的，但这次却不同寻常。5月28日，杰夫·贝索斯旗下的火箭公司蓝色起源在佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角测试一枚新格伦火箭。引擎点火时，可见一连串闪光。随后整个火箭爆炸，一团愤怒的蘑菇云笼罩在发射场上空。
Shortly afterwards Blue Origin announced, in the prim(一本正经的，刻板的) language of official space flight, that it had suffered an “anomaly(异常，反常)”. Mr Bezos confirmed that no one had been hurt. But the blast, which lit up(照亮，点亮) the night sky a dozen miles away and wrecked(摧毁，严重损坏) the firm’s only working launchpad, may well have been the biggest in space flight since an N1(苏联巨型登月火箭), a large Soviet rocket, blew up on launch in 1969.
不久之后，蓝色起源用官方太空飞行的严谨语言宣布，它遭遇了一次“异常”。贝索斯先生确认无人受伤。但这次爆炸照亮了十几英里外的夜空，摧毁了该公司唯一可用的发射台，很可能是自1969年苏联大型火箭N1发射时爆炸以来太空飞行中最大的一次。
The explosion is a big setback for Blue Origin, which seemed to have hit its stride(开始进入状态，步入正轨) after years of slow progress. It is a headache for Amazon, another firm founded by Mr Bezos, which is trying to get Leo, a satellite-internet venture that aspires(渴望，立志) to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink, off the ground. And it could delay NASA’s plans to return to the Moon. Just two days before the explosion, America’s space agency had detailed its plans for a permanent lunar base in a slick(华而不实的，巧妙的) press conference that featured Blue Origin prominently.
这次爆炸对蓝色起源来说是一个重大挫折，该公司经过多年缓慢进展后似乎正步入正轨。对于贝索斯创立的另一家公司亚马逊来说，这令人头痛，该公司正试图将其雄心勃勃的卫星互联网项目利奥（旨在与埃隆·马斯克的星链竞争）发射升空。而且它还可能推迟美国国家航空航天局（NASA）重返月球的计划。就在爆炸发生前两天，这家美国航天局在一场精彩的新闻发布会上详细介绍了其永久性月球基地计划，其中蓝色起源占据了突出地位。