Progress | 进展

Deep Cryo Liquid Oxygen Tank | 超低温液氧罐

This giant deep cryo liquid oxygen tank is actually a twelve meter tank —— you can see the relative scale of it in figure 1. It's a thousand cubic volume inside. That is actually more pressurized volume than an A380, to put that into perspective.We developed a new carbon fiber matrix that is much stronger and more capable at cryo than anything before, and it holds 1200 tons of liquid oxygen.

这个巨大的超低温液氧罐有12m那么高 —— 容积达到1000m³。讲真（to put that into perspective），这比一架A380飞机的容量还大得多（more pressurized volume）。我们开发了一个新的碳纤维容器（carbon fiber matrix）。这种材料在低温状态下比以往实验的任何材料都要更加坚固耐用（much stronger and more capable）。它可以装下1200吨液氧。

We successfully tested the tank up to its design pressure and went a little further. We wanted to see where it would break, and we succeeded in that effort. It shot about 300 feet into the air, landed in the ocean and we fished it out. At this point we have got a pretty good sense of how to create a huge carbon fiber tank that can hold cryogenic liquid oxygen. That is actually extremely important for making a light spaceship.

根据（up to）其设计压力，我们成功通过了对这种罐子的测试，并对其继续执行耐压测试（went a little further）。我们想通过耐压测试看看它能承受的最大压力。我们取得了实验的成功，容器爆炸（shot）时碎片直冲上300英尺高空（in the air），坠落（landed）到海里，随后我们将其打捞上岸（fished it out）。此时此刻（At this point）我们已经完全掌握了（got a pretty good sense of）如何建造一个可以容纳低温液氧的巨型罐子。这对建造一个轻量级飞船可谓至关重要（actually extremely important）。

超低温液氧罐