Chinese Astronauts Complete First Spacewalk

As_I_Please writes "At 8:40AM (GMT) this morning, Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang successfully spent 18 minutes in a tethered spacewalk outside the spacecraft Shenzhou 7. This is an important step in China's goal of building an orbiting space station and sending astronauts to the moon."

Is it for real this time?

[johanatan]

I wonder if the dialog amongst the spacemen was any different this time?

Re:Non-Chinese proof of this?

[Richard_at_work]

Yeah, like theres never been a press report of a major event that hasn't gone out accidentally before time? Like, say, the BBC News report of Building 7 collapsing several minutes before it actually did.....

It was a fuckup, nothing more imho.

Re:Non-Chinese proof of this?

[Nethemas the Great]

I think it's something about announcing launches, with detailed transcripts of conversations, before they happen.

If I am remembering correctly a news outlet in China published "accidentally," the story with a conversation transcript. While it is possible that that was exactly what was going to be published following the launch/spacewalk it could well have been a "template" for the real story to be published after the launch. China likes to script and practice things with meticulous detail prior to the actual "public" event. They're trying to prove to the world and themselves that they are worthy of attention as a global powerhouse and it starts for them by putting their best foot forward. They don't want mistakes and/or embarassments and this is their way of mitigating it.

These folks have done in 10 years what has taken over 100 in the US in terms of industrialization and economics. Cut them a bit of slack... I'm grateful to the Chinese for their pursuit of space exploration. It provides healthy competition that has been lacking since the fall of the USSR. It may well be what is needed to get the money flowing back into NASA and instead of the likes of Blackwater and DoD more generally. Even if there's a bit of exageration--which may or may not be the case--it isn't as if we weren't doing the same thing to the Russians with our own space program.

Re:Ah, the joys of Imperialism.

[Wonderkid]

Interesting. And a good reason for races to inter procreate. Let's mix it up and save ourselves from domination by one specific (possibly evil) gene type.

Re:Non-Chinese proof of this?

[AoT]

That sounds somehow familiar [dallasnews.com].

Re:Non-Chinese proof of this?

[tmach]

As someone who writes a lot of those news stories (on the local, not national level) I can attest to the fact that sometimes generic scripts are pre-written, with details to be filled in later. Usually they're for events that happen in pretty much the same way every year (parades or festivals, stuff like that). However, I doubt the Chinese launch article was one of those. It reportedly included detailed dialogue between astronauts and the ground. For obvious reasons, you don't include detailed quotes in a pre-written "skeleton" script or article.

wake up time

[steveneo]

Honestly, I gradually believe Chinese politic system is not very bad. See US can elect Bush, the liar, stupid ever person. See US critic always discussed chinese financial system is in dangerous. but the fact is not always like most so-call democratic oriented expected... it is time to wake up...