美国的大国工匠|《经济学人》：工匠代代有，精神永流传

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本期导读：何为工匠？一砖一瓦，一凿一砌，令尽身精血聚其中，命理念思想隐其内，其中艰辛历历在身而不足与外人道。更有甚者终其一生不得人知，受世辱人骂，历亲疏友离，身后数年才为人知晓，因之赞其清誉，痛其苦难，叹其成就，谓其工匠。不以得享富贵而物喜，不以历受惨遇而己悲，此不正为“天降大任于是人也”乎？但凡誉之尽心者，凤毛麟角；称之工匠者，寥若星辰。凡有志者，应念及此。

工匠精神是指工匠以极致的态度对自己的产品精雕细琢，精益求精、追求更完美的精神理念。工匠们喜欢不断雕琢自己的产品，不断改善自己的工艺，享受着产品在双手中升华的过程。工匠精神的目标是打造本行业最优质的产品，其他同行无法匹敌的卓越产品。概括起来，工匠精神就是追求卓越的创造精神、精益求精的品质精神、用户至上的服务精神。

Obituary

逝者

The last of Earth

告别地球

Joseph Schmitt, spacesuit technician, died on September 25th, aged 101.

约瑟夫·施密特，一位普通的航空服技术员，于9月25日去世，享年101岁。

WHEN he was growing up in rural southern Illinois, each member of Joseph Schmitt’s large family had their own job to do. Aunt Katie baked for everyone; he remembered the big pie-safe on her porch. His brother did the hog-butchering, while an uncle made all the family’s shoes. And he, as a boy, also had his special jobs. He delivered clean washing to his widowed mother’s customers, pulling it along in his little four-wheel wagon, and he shined shoes and cleaned spittoons in his brother-in-law’s barbershop. At a dime a shine, it took 300 of them to get enough money to buy his mother a new cooking stove. But even his pocket-change contribution kept the family going.

施密特在伊利诺伊州南部的农村长大，家里成员很多，每个人都有各自的工作。姑姑卡蒂是面包师，施密特曾记得，姑姑的走廊里有个很大的碗橱。哥哥杀猪，有个叔叔是鞋匠，家里所有人的鞋都是叔叔做的。而施密特，当时还小，也干着自己特有的工作，帮已守寡的妈妈把洗好的衣服，用一个四轮小货车拉着，送还给客户。施密特也曾在姐夫的理发店里给人擦鞋、清洗痰盂。每擦一双鞋，能挣一毛钱，若要帮妈妈买个新炉灶，就需要擦三百双鞋。不过，即使施密特所挣到的这些零碎钱，也能有效地补贴家用。

His grown-up career was the same to him: just playing his small part. By a real piece of luck, and because he was good with his hands—especially at mending flightsuits and rigging parachutes—he was taken on by NASA as a spacesuit technician in the most exciting years of America’s space project, and saw the first of almost everything. He was there when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947; when Alan Shepard made America’s first manned space flight, in 1961; when John Glenn first orbited Earth, in 1962; when Apollo 8 went round the moon in 1968, and when Apollo 11’s module landed on it in 1969, for him the most mind-boggling moment of all. The team had never worked so hard at anything. But he went on for many years yet, to suit up men for the first Skylab flight and the first Shuttles, before in 1983 he left to get on with all the stuff at home that needed fixing.

施密特成年后的工作，对他自己来说，也是一样，只是做好他自己的那一小块儿。施密特运气实在不错，因为双手灵巧，特别是善于修补飞行员服装、装配降落伞，因此被美国航空航天局看上，当上了航空服技术员。其时，美国的航空项目正突飞猛进，施密特也因此经历了美国航空领域里几乎所有的第一次。1947年，查克·叶格超音速飞行时，他在场；1961年，艾伦·谢波德进行美国历史上首次载人太空飞行时，他在场；1962年，约翰·格林首次绕地飞行时，他在场；1968年，阿婆罗8号绕月飞行时，他在场，而当1969年阿波罗11号实现月球着陆的那一刻，则是所有时刻中最令他难以想象的一刻。整个团队从来没有如此努力过，而施密特则继续工作很多年，为首批太空实验室和航天飞机航天员制作服装，直到1983年，他才离开岗位退休回到老家，开始对家里的东西修修补补。

As a suit tech, he considered himself a low man on the pole. His job was to help design the spacesuits and then, before the flight, put the astronauts into them, one suit tech to each astronaut. First came cotton long johns and, in later years (after some accidents) a proper urine-collection device, which he thought up himself. Then came the heavy tailor-made suit, pressurised to five pounds per square inch. The extra-vehicular suits for Apollo 11 were a real piece of work: 28 layers of nylon coated with Kapton and Teflon, built to withstand a temperature range of 500˚F and assault from micro-meteorites. Each one cost $100,000. After the flight, he vacuumed the moondust out of them. He didn’t keep any.

作为一个航空服技术员，施密特把自己放在一个很低的位置，自己的工作只是帮着设计航空服，然后在飞行之前，让航空员穿上，一位航空员会配备一个服装技术员。刚开始，是很长的棉质服装，后来（经过一些事故后），增加了一个尿液收储器，这个是施密特自己想出来的。然后，开始采用很重的量身定制的航空服，进行加压，每平方英寸的压力可达5磅。阿波罗11号所用的舱外航空服，那可真是匠心之作：尼龙材质，共有28层，最外面还有聚酰亚胺和特氟龙涂层，这样耐温就可达500华氏度，并能扛得住太空微粒的撞击。每套这样的航空服，成本高达100000美元。那次飞行任务完成后，施密特用真空吸尘器把航空服上带回来的月尘打理干净，自己也没留一些。

Dinner with Rockwell

与洛克威尔共进晚宴

译者注：

洛克威尔：诺曼·洛克威尔（Norman Rockwell，1894年2月3日－1978年11月8日），美国20世纪早期重要画家及插画家，作品横跨商业宣传与美国文化，一生中的绘画作品大都经由《星期六晚邮报》刊出，其中最知名的系列作品是在1940和50年代出现，如《四大自由》与《女子铆钉工》。

For suiting-up he worked carefully to a checklist, as he liked to do even when he packed his suitcase. Checklists saved people. He was looking for fatal air-leaks, especially around the zippers, consulting the suit-pressure instrument panel he had made himself. (It was crude, but it did the job.) Carry-on items such as pens and snacks had already been put in the right pockets. He itemised for stowage the things astronauts liked to take up—wedding rings, flags and the like. Communication lines were connected, and over-gloves, boots and five-pound helmets locked on.

给航天员穿航空服时，施密特总会按照检查清单逐条细心对照，即使他自己的行李箱打包时，也会按照清单一一对照核验。检查清单能确保航天员的安全，施密特会核验是不是存在能给航天员带来生命危险的漏气的地方，特别是拉链附近，并会用他自制的航空服压力仪表板进行检查（那个仪表板尽管显得有点粗糙，但却很实用）。航天员随身携带的诸如笔、零食等物品，也应一一检查是否已放于正确的口袋。施密特也为航天员喜欢携带的诸如婚戒、旗帜之类的物品专设了存储袋，当然也要检查通讯线路是否接好，专用手套、长筒靴以及重达五磅的头盔是否锁好。

The biggest deal, three hours before lift-off, was to hook the astronauts to portable oxygen ventilators to reduce the nitrogen in their blood. Without that, they would get the bends on re-entry. Because the ventilators lasted only half an hour, he would carry out spares to the launch pad, walking behind the smiling, waving astronauts with his head down. He had no wish to be photographed; he was the back-up man.

在升空前的三小时里，最重要的一项工作就是给航天员配备随身的供氧器以减少航天员血液中的氮含量。没有供氧器的话，航天员在返回途中就会发生减压症。供氧器只能持续一个半小时，因此施密特就需要也把备用的搬到发射台，航天员们微笑着向大家招手，而施密特则在他们后面做着自己的工作，低着头，不想被拍到，因为自己只是做了点后勤支持工作。

译者注：

1、高血氮：高血氮是指氮在血液中所占的比例升高，肾脏功能发生障碍时容易出现这一症状。有时虽然没有肾脏的器质性病变，但非蛋白氮的产生并未减少，而经由肾脏排泄的非蛋白氮受影响所致，从而形成氮质血症及低氯血症。血中尿毒、肌酐、尿酸等非蛋白氮(NPN)含量显著升高，称氮质血症(azotemia)，正常人血中NPN为25~35mg%，其中尿素氮为10-15mg%。凡继发于下列情况的肾灌流不足均可引致高血氮：①心搏出量减少;②失血;③低血压;④脱水综合征;⑤手术后时期;⑥肿瘤病后期;⑦ADH分泌综合征;⑧用血管收缩药等。

2、减压症：俗称潜水夫病或沉箱病，（英文：Decompression sickness，简称：DCS，俚语常用 divers' disease、the bends、caisson disease），泛指人体因周遭环境压力急速降低时造成的疾病。

Besides, his job was not over. Inside the spacecraft he had to fix the astronauts in their restraint straps and check they were comfortable. In the early years, bent over them like a surgeon with a patient in his white cap and overalls, he would wish them a “real good flight”. Later on the close-out crew were not allowed to talk to the astronauts, so he used hand signals and smiles. His face and securing touch were Shepard’s and Glenn’s and Neil Armstrong’s last physical contact with Earth before, as Glenn put it, “there are no more hands”. But he made light of it. America’s astronauts were as fine a group of fellows as you’d ever want to meet, and he never saw them nervous. Business as normal.

此外，他还要做的是，需要在太空飞行器中用紧束带把航天员固定住，并检查松紧是否舒适。刚开始的那些年，低着腰给航天员安置装备，自己从头到脚也都是白色着装，施密特总感觉自己像是个正在给病人做手术的医生，就像医生希望病人会痊愈一样，施密特也会默默祈祷航天员能“非常棒地完成飞行”。后来，不再允许像施密特这样的工作人员在装备完好后与航天员说话，因此他就用手势和微笑向航天员告别。施密特的微笑以及他那信心十足的触碰感，是诸如谢波德、格林、阿姆斯特朗等航天员飞行开始前在地球上的最后身体接触，正如后来格林所说的那样，“升空后就摸不到任何人的手了”。不过，施密特对此却没看的那么重。在施密特眼里，美国的航天员们，都是很好的工作伙伴，施密特从没见他们紧张过，一切事情都会按部就班进行。

He was therefore quite embarrassed when fame brushed by. First, he was on “What’s My Line?” on TV in 1963, where four celebrities had to guess what job he did. Then Norman Rockwell painted him, once suiting up John Young, and once right behind Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins in “From the Earth to the Moon.” When he asked why he had been put there, so close to those heroes, Rockwell said that was where he had always seen him.

因此，当面临名声忽然来临时，施密特会显得不知所措。第一次时是在1963年，施密特上了电视节目“猜猜我是干嘛滴？”，让四位社会名人猜他做的是什么工作。然后一次，是洛克威尔给他画像，一副像是正在给约翰·杨穿航空服，另一幅是名叫“从地球到月球”的画像，画像中，施密特就在阿姆斯特朗、奥尔德林、柯林斯身后。当施密特问为什么把他画在那里，与那些英雄那么近时，洛克威尔回答道，那就是一直以来他看到的施密特的位置。

For the TV show he had to go to New York City, his first visit, where he marvelled that the lights stayed on all night. For the Rockwell pictures he took a spacesuit to Stockbridge, Massachusetts in his car, so that Rockwell could capture all the colours. At dinner there he felt out of place with so many educated people, but luckily he knew to use the silverware from the outside. So he bluffed his way through.

上电视节目那次，施密特需要去纽约，那是他第一次去纽约，纽约整夜灯火通明，让他大开眼界。在马萨诸塞州的斯托克布里奇市，洛克威尔给他画像时，施密特开车过去时专门带了一套航空服，这样洛克威尔就能看到航空服上的所有颜色。晚宴时很多有良好教育背景的人士到场，施密特感到有点局促，觉得自己不适应那种场合，不过幸好他知道怎么使用那些高档餐具，因此，他也就逢场作戏一番糊弄了过去。

Perhaps his best memento was the gold medal Glenn gave him after his orbits of Earth, with his initials, JS, on the back. Glenn took about ten up with him; the rest went to the president and other bigwigs. He felt “real proud” to get it, but kept quiet. So quiet that when, in his 80s, a long-abandoned Mercury space capsule was recovered from the seabed and he let slip at the barber’s that he had put Gus Grissom in it, the whole shop looked at him in disbelief, before the barber went on snipping.

或许，施密特最珍贵的纪念品，就是格林首次绕地飞行后给他的那块金质奖牌，奖牌背面刻有格林名字的首字母。格林带给施密特十枚左右，其他的几枚都给了总统和其他大碗。能得到那枚奖牌，施密特感到“非常自豪”，不过却一直沉默不语。他一直以来都是如此地沉默不语，而当八十多岁高龄的他在理发店里听到沉入海底很长时间的水星太空舱打捞成功的那一刻，却突然开口说，那个太空舱里还有航天员格斯·格里索姆，还是他把格里索姆送进那个太空舱的，整个理发店的人都看着他，感到不敢相信，然后，理发师就又开始修剪头发了。

往期精彩：

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