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【大众科学】世界上第一个绝对安全的地下豪华社区

于 10-10-23 通过译言-每日精品译文推荐作者：van c

原作者：
来源The World's First Everything-Proof Underground Luxury Community | Popular Science
译者van c

The World's First Everything-Proof Underground Luxury Community

【大众科学】世界上第一个绝对安全的地下豪华社区

Survive the end of the world for just $5,000 down

只需5000美元让你幸免于世界末日

By Arnie Cooper10.07.2010 at 10:13 am

阿尼•库伯 2010/10/07

背景：Terra Vivos，地堡式分时享用度假别墅，受电影《2012》渲染的世界末日情绪推动，美国一家公司将在2010年6月起推出一种地堡式分时享用度假别墅，这种名为Terra Vivos的别墅设计的目的是为了抵挡核弹袭击、全球大瘟疫等灾难。（来自互动百科）

Entrance to the Terra Vivos Underground Robert Vicino at the entrance to his Terra Vivos underground shelter network near Barstow, California John B. Carnett

罗伯特•维奇诺站在他位于加利福尼亚巴斯托的地下居住区Terra Vivos 的入口处。摄影约翰•B•卡奈特

To reach the world's first everything-proof underground luxury community, I drive east out of Barstow, California, 50 or so miles into the Mojave Desert, then turn down an unmarked gravel road, park in a barren lot surrounded by razor wire, enter what appears to be a small cinderblock garage, and walk down two steep flights of reinforced-concrete stairs, at which point the project's enthusiastic promoter, Robert Vicino, greets me with an outstretched hand, slams a 3,000-pound blast door behind us, and asks this question: "Do you have a family?"

为了前往世界上第一处能够抵挡一切袭击的地下豪华社区，我朝东开车到距加利福尼亚巴斯托（Barstow）大约50英里的莫哈韦沙漠（Mojave Desert），然后转向一条没有路标的碎石路，把车停在一块周围满是铁丝网的空地上，走进一座貌似空心砖堆砌的车库，又走了两段很陡的钢筋混净土楼梯，在这里见到了这项工程的热心推动者——罗伯特•维奇诺（Robert Vicino），他伸出手来欢迎我，关上了我们身后3000磅重的防爆门，然后问我："你有家庭吗？"

Then: Do I have life insurance? Would I like to have 10 times the life insurance I already have? Would I like to have something even better? Because I can. The structure in which we are now standing was built by AT&T in 1965 to protect telephone infrastructure from a nuclear attack, but now it can protect something far more important: me and my loved ones. For just $50,000 each—half off for kids—I can buy a fractional share of the Terra Vivos underground shelter network, a project that will include at least 19 more "community bunkers," each of them located within 150 to 200 miles of a major American city. Terra Vivos is a concrete-and-steel solution to the end times, whether brought about by climate change or nuclear war or even an unavoidable realignment of the cosmic order. Wherever I happen to be at that terrible moment, I'll have a place to live the morning after. "I'm not selling life insurance," Vicino explains. "I'm providing life assurance."

接着他问：我有人身保险吗？我想更安全十倍吗？我想获得更安全的保护吗？因为我可以让我的梦想成为现实。我们所在的这座由美国电话电报公司为保护电话设施免遭核攻击于1965年建造的建筑如今可以保护更重要的人——我和我的家人。只需50000美元/人（儿童半价），我就可以买到Terra Vivos地下居住区（这项工程将包括至少另外19处地下社区，每一处都位于距美国主要城市150到200英里的地方）的一块地方。Terra Vivos在世界末日时会绝对安全，不管是气候变化或者核战争甚至是宇宙秩序的重新调整。不管身在何处碰上这种灾难，我都将有逃过这一切的地方。"我不是在卖人身保险"，维奇诺解释到，"我是在提供人身保险。"

The physical specifications required to assure life are striking. The Barstow bunker was built to withstand a 50-megaton nuclear blast 10 miles away, 450mph winds, a magnitude-10 earthquake, 10 days of 1,250°F surface fires, and three weeks beneath any flood. Vicino says that a soon-to-be-installed air-filtration system will also neutralize any biological, chemical or nuclear attacks. The Barstow branch will stock enough food and clothing to sustain 135 people for at least a year, and in a lifestyle that Vicino describes as compact but luxurious, like being on a cruise ship. Getting on board requires a $5,000 deposit, he says, to be held in escrow until the bunker is ready to move into, at which point the remainder is due. As of August, several hundred people had put their money down for a spot in one of his bunkers, he says; 75 for Barstow thus far.

这项工程保护人身安全的功能强大。巴斯托地下社区设计强度可以抵挡十英里外5000万吨级的核爆炸，450英里/小时大风，10级大地震，10天的1250°F地表大火，还有三周的洪水。维奇诺称很快就会安装一个空气过滤系统以消除任何生物、化学或者核攻击。巴斯托分区贮存的食物和衣服足以满足135个人一年的需要，并且生活方式如维奇诺所说虽然紧凑但是很豪华，就像是在游轮上一样。他说要想进入社区需要先付5000美元定金以备社区允许进入之时拿着作为凭证，同时剩余的房间仍接受预订。截至八月份，已有几百人付了订金，他说，巴斯托分区目前还剩75人的地方。

Bunker Bathroom

社区洗刷间

Vicino has always had a taste for offbeat business ventures. In 1977, at the age of 22, he pioneered the "giant inflatables" advertising medium by building a giant inflatable Jose Cuervo bottle for the liquor company to display at events. Within five years, he says, he had 200 Fortune 500 clients. After he had done everything he could do in the inflatables sector, he sold his company and began a new venture, speculating in fractional shares of resort homes from Europe to Hawaii. (A fractional share is like a timeshare, except that buyers actually own a piece of the title.)

维奇诺一向钟情于充满挑战的工作。在1997年，22岁的他就领导广告同仁造了一个巨型充气玩具供饮料公司在活动中展示。之后五年内，他就有了"财富500强"中的200家顾客。当他的公司在充气玩具行业无所不能时，他卖掉了公司，开始了新的历险——投资欧洲到夏威夷的度假房屋共享。（这里的共享就好像是时间共享，只是房屋共享是在共享实体的东西。）

The idea to build and sell post-apocalyptic bunkers weighed on Vicino for many years before he acted. In 1980 he saw a replica of the Mayan calendar, the ancient stone carving that predicts that the world will end on December 21, 2012. Vicino recalls the moment clearly. "It just gave me this gut-wrenching feeling that I needed to convert a mine to a shelter for 1,000 people with everything you'd need to survive for a long period of time." The decades passed, however, and it wasn't until this year, the end times fast approaching, that Vicino purchased the Barstow bunker for an undisclosed amount. He has six more under contract: one in North Carolina, one in Pennsylvania, two in New York, and two in "the Midwest." (Vicino won't give precise locations, citing the need to stay hidden from intruders.)

建造并出售供预言发生后居住的地下社区的想法已在维奇诺心中很多年，直到最近开始实施。在1980年，他看了玛雅历法，历法预言世界将在2012年12月21日灭亡。维奇诺清楚的回忆到，"这让我有了用我的财富去为1000个人建造避难场所的想法，我要为他们提够长时间存活所需要的一切东西。"几十年过去之后，如今世界末日很快就要到来，因此维奇诺买下了巴斯托地下社区（没有透漏具体数额）。他共买下六块地下社区：一块在北加利福尼亚，一块在宾夕法尼亚，两块在纽约，两块在中西部。（因为保密的需要，维奇诺没有提供精确的地址。）

Now, as 2012 approaches, Vicino says he is actually more worried about 2013, when solar activity is expected to increase significantly. He says an extreme solar storm could fire a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse at Earth, crash the power grid, and thereby trigger anarchy. Even if the world escapes that fate, it could still face an asteroid, or a plague, or a war. Anything could happen. "2012 is just the impetus to bring the project forward because there's a great deal of concern now, but these bunkers could be of use anytime in the next 200 years," Vicino says. "We're building for whenever."

随着2012年的迫近，维奇诺称他实际上更担心2013年，预计那年的太阳活动异常活跃。他说一场太阳风暴可以引发地球灾难性的电磁脉冲，可以摧毁电网，导致社会混乱。即使地球躲过了这场劫难，仍要面对小行星的撞击或是瘟疫或是战争。任何事都有可能发生。"2012对于实施这项工程只起到了推动作用，因为现在我们有许许多多担心的事情，而这些地下社区可以在200年内任何时间使用，"维奇诺说，"我们在建造永久的社区。"

Living Module: Each Vivos bunk, Vicino says, will allot 100 square feet of space to each resident.

生活单元：每个地下社区将分配给每个居民100平方英尺的空间。

All Sales Final: Vicino's repair list for the Barstow bunker is extensive. Before he can start redecorating, it needs new wiring, a new generator, air filters and more. Projected cost: $3.5 million. John B. Carnett

最终出售：维奇诺的修理单上条目众多。在装饰社区之前，他需要重新铺设线路，新的发电机，空气过滤器等等。这项工程需要花费350万美元。

Vicino leads me into a smaller room, and the scent of old diesel recalls the bunker's Cold War vintage. Vicino points to a flip switch marked "nuclear blast detector." It activates a gamma-ray detector that will spot a nuclear blast as much as 100 miles away and instantly shut all the airvents. He had it tested before moving in. "This is the real thing," he says. "It still works!"

维奇诺把我带到一个小房间，房间里柴油机的气味不禁让人回想起地冷战时期的地下城堡。维奇诺指向一个写有核爆炸嗅探器的开关。它能使伽马射线嗅探器工作——嗅探100英里外核爆炸并立即关闭所有通风口。在他进驻之前测试过，"这是真的，仍然工作！"

Until recently, the construction of large bomb shelters was mainly the work of governments. In 1962, for instance, federal authorities completed construction of a massive "continuity of government" bunker beneath the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. The nuclear-fallout shelter, code-named Project Greek Island, packed enough supplies to keep all of Congress plus another 600 staff members alive for 45 days.

直到最近，建造大型防空洞才成为政府的主要工作。例如，在1962年，联邦政府在西弗吉尼亚州绿蔷薇度假区(Greenbrier resort in West Virginia)地底建造完成了一大片政府使用的地下碉堡。代号为希腊岛工程(Project Greek Island)的核辐射防护工程存储了足够国会以及另外600人存活45天的供应。

Now smaller entrepreneurs are getting involved. Some are building from scratch—Texas-based Radius Engineering, for instance, offers fiberglass shelters that it says can support 2,000 people for five years underground—and others are taking over Cold War relics. "The critical infrastructure is there," says Larry Hall, the project manager of Survival Condo Project, which is converting abandoned Atlas missile silos in Kansas into seven-floor fallout shelters at $1.75 million a floor. Brian Camden, the CEO of the Colorado firm Hardened Structures, says his bunker sales have increased by 40 percent since 2005. He is also helping Vicino renovate his older bunkers and build 13 more bunkers from prefabricated units that Vicino is ordering from a yacht manufacturer in Taiwan.

如今小公司也加入到了建造生存社区的行列。有些公司从零开始——例如，德克萨斯州的半径工程公司（Radius Engineering）出售玻璃纤维防护所，这种防护所可以使2000人在地下生活五年，其他的公司则利用冷战时期的遗产。"最重要的基础设施已经摆在那儿，"生存公寓工程（Survival Condo Project，该工程将位于堪萨斯州被遗弃的阿特拉斯导弹发射井改建成七层防空洞，每层花费175万美元）项目经理拉里•豪尔说。布莱登•卡姆登，科罗拉多州Hardened Structures公司首席执行官称他的地下社区销售自2005年增长了40%。他也在帮助维奇诺修理老旧的地下城堡；用维奇诺预先从一台湾游艇制造商那定做的原件建造另外13座地下社区。

Bunk Bedroom: Each 8-by-10 bedroom sleeps four.

卧室：每个地下社区80个卧室，每个卧室住四人。

Buyers are drawn to Vivos for a variety of reasons. Jason Hodge, a 40-year-old former mechanic, says the promised air-filtration system was a major attraction: "I live 123 miles from Los Angeles, and I'm on the windward side of town. If a dirty bomb goes off in L.A., the fallout's hitting my neighborhood within a couple of hours." Steve Kramer, a 56-year-old respiratory therapist from Palos Verdes, California, is more concerned about post-apocalyptic raiders. He made his deposit, he says, after inspecting the bunker's hardened-steel doors, which are strong enough to repel a tank blast.

顾客购买地下社区的原因众多。40岁的杰森•霍奇（之前是一名机械工人）称他们所承诺的空气过滤系统是吸引我的主要地方："我住在洛杉矶外123英里的地方并且我住的地方在小镇的迎风面，如果洛杉矶发生爆炸，辐射尘将在几小时内到达我所在的街区。"来自加利福尼亚帕洛斯弗迪斯（Palos Verdes）56岁的呼吸理疗师史蒂夫•克拉莫则更在意2012之后的各种威胁。他说在视察地下社区，看到了足以抵抗油罐爆炸的淬火钢门之后，他交了定金。

Building the Vivos society requires complicated engineering too. Vicino says he has 5,000 additional applicants on file but that he is being selective in order to create a balanced community. "You wouldn't want 200 doctors in one facility and no plumbers," he says. "If the toilet breaks, that could be a real disaster." People can bring guns, but they must check them at the door. If someone misbehaves, the security staff will lock him in a detention center. Vicino is also thinking about survival of the species, not just his customers. He plans to stock each Vivos bunker with a freezer full of DNA samples of as many species as he can collect. Whether it's preserving humanity or reseeding a scorched planet, he asks, "don't you want to be one of the guys repopulating the Earth?"

建造生存社区是一项复杂的工程。维奇诺称他的文档上还有5000多名申请者，但是他在做出选择以使社区相对平衡。"你不会愿意社区有200个医生却没有一个水管工。"他说，"如果厕所坏了，那真不堪设想。"人们可以携带枪支，但是必须在门口接受检查。如果哪个人行为不端，安全人员会把他所在拘留中心。维奇诺还考虑到物种的存活，而不仅仅是他的顾客。他计划在每个生存社区安置一个冰箱，将他能够收集的物种DNA标本保存。关于是保留人类还是延续地球的生物，他问道："难道你不想成为延续地球的一份子吗？"

As our tour nears its conclusion, Vicino shows me an old control panel that indicates which bunker systems are still functioning. Only a few of the dozens of ights are blinking. The wiring is shot, the toilets don't flush, and the 750-kilowatt diesel generator is so environmentally unsound that California law forbids him to run it. Vicino says he will need at least three more months to get the premises up to cruise-ship standards; the other 19 bunkers could be ready in 18 months.

在我的参观将要结束的时候，维奇诺向我展示了一个可以显示哪个地下社区系统仍在工作的老旧的控制器。几十个指示灯只有几个还在闪烁着。线路破损，厕所不能冲水，750千瓦的柴油机也因不够环保被加利福尼亚法规禁止使用。维奇诺称他还需要至少三个月才能让这个地方达到游轮的标准；其它19个生存社区在一年半后也将改造完成。

The good news is that most scientists aren't predicting any immediate trouble. Regarding the Mayan prediction of a planetary alignment that would catastrophically reverse the Earth's magnetic field, Tom Bogdan, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, notes, "The planets have lined up plenty of times in the past, and we haven't detected any associated catastrophe." And in any case, no planetary alignment is expected in 2012. The only asteroid projected to come near Earth is a 1,000-foot-long rock called Apophis, and that won't be until 2029. Steve Chesley, a scientist with NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, says that even then, the odds of it hitting Earth run 250,000 to 1, adding, "There's nothing that looks particularly threatening out there." Climate change, meanwhile, will probably take several decades to create truly apocalyptic conditions, and in January the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists actually set its doomsday clock back by a full minute.

大多数科学家预言近期没有大的灾难，这着实是一条好消息。根据玛雅九星一线的预言，到时将导致地球磁极发生灾难性的倒转。美国国家海洋和大气管理局太空天气预测中心(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center)主管汤姆•博格丹(Tom Bogdan)称："九星一线过去已经发生很多次，我们并没有观测到与之相关的灾难。不管如何，预测显示2012年不会发生九星一线。预计只有一颗叫做Apophis（科学家估计，小行星的碰撞并不足以消灭地球上的生物，不过，碰撞所产生的一连串事件，如大量的火山爆发、海水水位上升、海水的氧气减少及气候急速改变，才导致大量生物死亡，地震的力量相等於芮氏震级十二级，是地球最强烈的地震的一百万倍，火山喷射出来的灰尘和二氧化碳，将会产生温室作用，令地球的气温上升，灰尘并且阻挡了日光，使植物不能产生光合作用，破坏地球的食物链。------来自互动百科）的1000英尺大的行星有可能接近地球，而那也是2029年的事。来自美国宇航局近地天体项目(NASA's Near-Earth Object Program)的史蒂夫•切斯利(Steve Chesley)称即使到那时撞击地球的几率增加了250，000倍，"也不会有什么看起来很有威胁的。"同时，气候变化可能在几十年后带来所预言的后果。在一月份的原子物理学家公报(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)将世界末日的时间推迟了整整一分钟。

When I relate such findings to Vicino, he is unmoved. He says disaster is always imminent, that someone could explode a nuclear weapon at any moment, that two asteroids had only just recently come this close to slamming into the Earth. "Do you have a fire extinguisher in your home?" he asks finally. "Do you think it's crazy to have it? Do you feel bad if you don't get to use it to put out a fire? You just don't know what's heading our way."

当我跟维奇诺提及这些时，他却不为所动。他说灾难总是在逼近我们，任何时候人们都有能使用核武器；那两颗行星仅仅在最近一段时间内就迫近地球那么多。"你家有灭火器吗？"他最后问到我："你不觉得把灭火器放在家里是件很疯狂的事吗？如果你不用它来灭火会感觉不爽吗？你根本不知道将会发生什么事。"

Entertainment Room: When disaster strikes, Vicino says, you won't have time to pack, so Vivos bunkers will be stocked with casual attire, shoes and plenty of underwear. When it's time to leave, you'll get sturdy outdoor apparel to survive the wilderness.