No.
I assume, as usual, you want more info, though!
There is a rumor going around that the Chinese government faked their space walk last week. I’m getting email about an article in The Epoch Times, and the article has obvious leanings against the Chinese government. I’m no fan of their government either, to be honest, but this article has many signs of the authors wearing tin foil changshans. They bring up the suspicious timing of the spacewalk, for example, as it comes when China is under attack about poisoned milk:
Political analysts say that due to tremendous domestic and international pressure, the Chinese regime moved up its spacewalk in hopes to shift focus away from the milk scandal.
What political analysts? Odd that the two journalists who wrote the article, Zhang Haishan and Shi Yu, wouldn’t actually list any obvious sources. All they ever do is quote unnamed Chinese bloggers, and never go to any other sources. It’s things like that which should set off your baloney detectors.
The claims themselves are pretty bad, too. Below is a video of the spacewalk. The article claims this was all shot underwater, in a practice tank!
As it plays, watch when the hatch opens. See the debris blowing out? The article claims these are bubbles! That’s really silly. It’s obviously debris from inside the craft. Again, an unnamed blogger says that if this were filmed underwater, the bubbles rose too fast. The authors claim it’s possible a fan blew them.
Yeeeeeah.
Watch as the taikonaut comes out of the hatch. Observe his movements. Imagine him in a bulky suit underwater, then watch as he waves to the camera. That’s clearly not underwater; his motions are too rapid to be impeded by water. The movement of the straps and other things hanging off the suit don’t look like they are underwater either; they look like they are in microgravity.
Another claim is that you can see banks of lights reflected off the taikonauts wrist reflectors. I watched carefully, and all I see reflected in the mirrors are the black of space, with occasional reflections of the Earth above. I think it’s the latter that’s claimed to be the lights.
My opinion: all in all, this sounds like yet more conspiracy theorists looking for things that aren’t there, and making stuff up as they see fit. This reads just like an article by Moon hoaxers, looking for anything they don’t understand and trying to wedge some nuttiness into reality.
Tip o’ the spacesuit visor to Steven Andreadis and Leonard David.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:11 am
if the video also showed 12 year old girls shooting fireworks, then i might get suspicious.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:12 am
@Phil
If that was really in space, why aren’t there any stars? Also, they clearly sped up the footage to make it seem like it wasn’t underwater. And at the end of the clip, they totally gave away that they used computer graphics, because everyone knows that the Earth doesn’t have red and pale rings with Chinese letters orbiting it.
[ouch, that hurt to write]
October 8th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Looks like their hatch was just barely big enough to allow the taikonaut to maneuver. I expect that anything that reflects honorably on the government would be criticized by those opposed to it.
Their space suit seems pretty cool. Wonder how much it costs???
Go Joss Whedon and Firefly. Your vision seems to be close to the way things will be. Guess I’d better start learning to swear in Chinese,,,
GAry 7
October 8th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Well, as a certified scuba diver with roughly 1000 dives over the last 20 years, I can say that the debris didn’t look or act like any bubbles I have ever seen.
However, none of the movements of the taikonaut are inconsistent with what you can do u/w, and the tethers certainly behaved as I would expect if they were positively bouyant.
But maybe that is how things are in space, and maybe that is why NASA uses a tank to practice with.
Im not saying this was filmed u/w, but you can’t tell by movement alone that it wasn’t…
October 8th, 2008 at 10:15 am
The article also claims that the earth does not move at all during the video. The clouds will tell you otherwise!
Maybe the meant the size of the earth? But that shouldn’t change if they’re in orbit though.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Wait, I know Steven Andreadis! I have to go bug him!
October 8th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Ever see any of those photos amateurs take of ISS from their backyards? Not bad. Now, imagine what the pros can see and hear. That’s why I’m always amused when someone goes off about secret Shuttle flights or some other nonsense. Us minions wouldn’t know any better, but those who are paid to know would know. Likewise, if someone wanted to make the effort, I’m sure they could have watched the Chinese EVA in progress. Does anyone doubt that the cameras on the ground looking up are any less powerful than the cameras in the sky looking down?
October 8th, 2008 at 10:21 am
It is clearly stop motion..
October 8th, 2008 at 10:26 am
I think the Epoch Times is affiliated with the Falun Gong, the religious group that has been persecuted in China and has been protesting here in New York City. I don’t have any proof, I just think I have seen the same people in the demonstrations and later handing out the Epoch Times. I haven’t seen any Falun Gong demonstrations for a year or more now.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I’m really surprised so far nobody said anything about the flag waving in space… because we all know that flags waving in space are a dead give–away!
October 8th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Not that I think the Chinese faked it, but in this day and age, how easily or hard is it to CGI a video of a space walk? We saw during the Olympics the enhancements the Chinese added to the telecast that “fooled” a lot of people.
In this case, if we were suspicious, how else could we verify yay or nay?
October 8th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Phil, I don’t doubt the authenticity of the spacewalk, but there WAS an interesting tidbit on Yahoo news before the space launch — the Chinese had posted a news story of their successful launch BEFORE they launched, complete with astronaut dialogue that had reportedly taken place during and after the launch, etc.
That said, it is clear the video was not faked. Why risk major embarassment in the face of the Olympics “live” event gaffes and the gymnast age scandals (which, while not covered in China, and while officially largely settled in China’s favor, have been a huge source of public embarrassment for China bureaucrats dealing with the outside world).
China could not have expected to fail at something that has been practiced for over 40 years and has had all the engineering issues worked out long ago. I think if the spacewalk failed or didn’t happen, the Chinese would have covered it up by not simply covering it, or noting it dismissively with a small back-page note saying how they had a small delay and would be doing it for sure real soon, which would likely have been true.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:42 am
There was no need for the Chinese to fake their space walk, as this news report shows:
China Launches First Willing Manned Mission Into Space
October 8th, 2008 at 10:48 am
@mapnut
Epoch Times is indeed the newspaper of the Falun Gong cult being persecuted in China.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Everything is faked. These comments are faked. Phil wrote them all and he isn’t real either.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Yeah, you are fake too. You are a robot renegade cop, typing away fake comments in some underwater tank on a sound stage in Antarctica.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Ok, now apart for the NOT faked thing….
Why is it that it took numerous attempts to open the hatch?
So that all the air inside could get out and equalize the pressure to the outside? Shouldn’t that take like only 1 second or 2?
Or maybe it is just because that they forgot to lubricate the hinges before lauch…
October 8th, 2008 at 11:41 am
@TODD
Dude, there aren’t any stars because of the reflection of the Earth. Because of the astronauts’ closeness to the Earth, the Earth’s reflection out powers the light from stars, which is relatively weak compared to the the more immediate and abundant light from the sun.
Basic science.
Also, you can see what appears to be a source light from the camera in the reflection of the face mask.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Everyone knows that John McCain faked last night’s debate. That was clearly a sound stage, and that Obama was clearly CGI.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I think you mean tinfoil dǒu lì.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
The spacewalk was obviously faked. If the astronauts were really on orbit they would have run into Sanjase’s flying saucer.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Amazing how many people immediately label anyone who questions the moon landings as a “woo woo,” but are perfectly willing to believe the Chinese could pull off a space walk hoax. Because, I suppose, communists are magical in some way.
Hello…the same arguments that apply to the moon landings apply here! The most obvious one being that governments around the world COULD TRACK THE WHOLE THING.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I remember reading a magazine article when I was a kid. It described how the Soviets faked their first space walk. “It’s deja vu all over again.”
October 8th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Philippec Says: “Why is it that it took numerous attempts to open the hatch? So that all the air inside could get out and equalize the pressure to the outside? Shouldn’t that take like only 1 second or 2?”
If they borrowed mission rules from us (a good idea if you want to come home alive), then he was practicing closing the hatch to make sure it would re-seal. If it didn’t, then they wouldn’t go outside because they’d have to fix it first. You can’t come home again.
The cabin had to be already vented before they open the hatch. I don’t know if the Chinese use a dual gas (O2-N2) or just O2, but even at 5 PSI (O2 only) there would be over 3,500 lbs (16,000 N) holding the hatch closed. With a dual gas system there would be two or three times that much.
What you saw blowing the debris out into space was just a tiny bit of residual gas, probably used to test the seal in the hatch.
I have no official knowledge of the mission, this is just an educated guess.
- Jack
October 8th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I also do not doubt the authenticity of the space walk. I applaud China for taking these baby steps into space exploration. I was born a little too late for Apollo, but I was there for Skylab, Voyager, Viking, and the Space Shuttle, so I get excited when I see something (if somewhat) new in space. In fact, I would love for China to go to the moon and attempt operating a base there, just to rub it in our face. It might get Congress and NASA motivated enough to get them into doing some real pioneering in manned exploration.
One thing that does bug me, and I’m sure many of the Tinfoil Origami Quilting Circle are already harping about, is the debris itself. From the video I saw there seemed to be a bit of it. I don’t remember seeing a noticeable amount of debris coming from that hatches from previous spacewalks I’ve witnessed. Of course, I’m sure this is all part of the conspiracy; NASA filming spacewalks at the Area 51 Film Studio B. But, I am concerned with the amount of space junk we have up there to begin with. I remember reading an article, before the first components of the ISS were sent up, on the safety of the station from debris of the junk we’ve left out there.
So I guess my questions is, why was there so much debris flying out of the airlock?
October 8th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Oh, and speaking of Chinese Fakes:
http://picasaweb.google.com/thedolittle/UntitledAlbum?authkey=-IUnK-BGgx4#5254885955618442290
I know neither Phil nor Discovery can’t really control this, but I had a giggle.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I can tell it’s a fake by the so-called “round” planet in the background. It looks good and flat to me when i look out my window.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
@domsbombz
Heh. I know. I was just parodying the moon hoax believers. I thought the “hurt to write” comment at the end made it clear I was joking.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
TheDoLittle Says: “One thing that does bug me is the debris itself. From the video I saw there seemed to be a bit of it. I don’t remember seeing a noticeable amount of debris coming from that hatches from previous spacewalks I’ve witnessed. I am concerned with the amount of space junk we have up there to begin with. I remember reading an article, before the first components of the ISS were sent up, on the safety of the station from debris of the junk we’ve left out there. So I guess my questions is, why was there so much debris flying out of the airlock?”
This was their first spacewalk, and they don’t have all the procedures down yet. Our first EVA (Gemini IV) didn’t have live TV, of course, but even the 16mm sequence camera showed a stray glove floating out of the hatch while Ed White was outside.
I wouldn’t be too concerned with what they left in orbit on this flight. It’s low enough that all that stuff will be back down in a month or two. It’s more of a problem with the ISS since its orbit is some three times higher.
- Jack
October 8th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I love that video.
I, too, thought at first that the fella was fighting the hatch - “Don’t they have a pressure release valve to let that air out?” The thought was reinforced by the funny “Hooooee!” the guy let out as he opened it wide the first time, like he was lifting a pig onto the back his pickup truck.
Then the instructions for the hatch blew out into space AW DAMMIT!
October 8th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
It’s a sad thing, but there are a lot of people who cannot cope, and they resent those who can enough to try to bring them down. Especially in religious argument, the definition of “true” is “what they believe”.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I’m hoping that Chinese ops in space will help to motivate our governments as regards space endevours. I read somewhere that one response to Sputnik was renewed investment in education, particularly science education in the States. Maybe other blogees could confirm or deny that. Ok, circumstances are very different now, but it might just help to get science and education higher up the priority list. I can dream. Also I’m full of admiration for the taikonauts. They no more determine their country’s human rights attitude than did the Mercury 7 back in the 60s.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I actually feel proud for China taking these first steps into space.
I really do wish we could join them as we joined Russia. I’d be willing to invite China on the ISS even.
The message we ought to give is that in space, there are no political lines. We are all one.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
This brings to mind the filmclip I remember seeing, shortly after the first Soviet spacewalk (in 1963?), which was also branded a fake by a few nutjobs (though, being young at the time, I didn’t know they were nutjobs). I still have a picture in my mind’s eye of seeing a still photograph, showing Gagarin (?) hanging outside his capsule. Narrator says “But it would have been impossible, in a pressure suit, to hold his legs THAT close together–let us show you what happens when we ENHANCE the photo–look, you can see the ropes holding his legs together!”
And here we are, 40-something years later, with nutjobs making the same claims.
At least, back then, there was a drive to show a Commie couldn’t do something before an American could–what do you suppose the rationale is this time?
October 8th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Wasn’t there a news article on discovermagazine.com about how people, when faced with events they don’t understand, subconsciously make up patterns (even though they may not be correct patterns) in an attempt to make sense of things?
October 8th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Scott, I actually did call the Chinese out on their flag-waving, way back when: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/09/27/astro-quickies/#comment-121566
Viewer3, my mild dyslexia somehow assembled the word “groin” from pieces of other words in your comment about the debate. I thought you were suggesting that McCain faked a groin pull to end the debate. Which would be interesting, to say the least.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Oh God, please don’t cite the Epoch Times. That’s like referencing a Scientology article on psychiatrists. It’s a bit of a giggle actually how Falun Gong gets a whole lot of mention all through this “current affairs” newspaper as well as the Communist government although the latter always in a highly critical way.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I’ve got to say that when it comes to achievements in space travel I have a tendency to forget ideological differences.
Well done China.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:37 am
@GregInVancouver: Why do you think so? Epoch Times coverage on China is usually spot on. All the main stories they broke like SARS spreading in China or organ harvesting from live political prisoners turned out to be true.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:43 am
IVAN3MAN, thanks for posting that video. Almost cacked myself. Hilarious.
I always wondered why the Epoch Times seems to handed out at railway stations by little old Chinese women. I have sympathy for any group persecuted by the Chinese government but Falun Gong’s claims seem to be a little on the extreme side. I don’t doubt the labour camps or the executions but some of their claims seem to be have degenerated into hyperbole.
Their leader also believes that David Copperfield really walked through the Great Wall. Seriously, he wrote in the Falun Gong literature that David Copperfield really can do magic.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:10 am
Richie, the first spacewalk was by Alexei Leonov
October 9th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I could not get over the “fake” look to this whole thing.
First this whole exercise is simply to wave a flag. No science was done.
Here is the best evidence that this was a fake: There is no sunlight! There is earthlight, a nice diffused light as one would expect, but where is the sharp light/shadow produced by the Sun?
FAKE CHINESE EVA, FAKE CHINESE MILK, FAKE FAKE….
October 9th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
The article also mentions the video quality and the signal interruption at the end as proof of fake. But I suppose that if they DID use a high-quality video link, it would have a higher chance of interference.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:37 am
@ shane
You’re welcome! That’s what I’m here for.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Flag issue:
Space is no gravity-free environment. Especially near the planets (in this case Earth). Astronauts have special boots to make them heavier and to have better grip. Now if strength vector given by astronauts hand to the flag stick is stronger than friction and gravity, flag should wave (not like one on Earth) but it should.
If the Chinese government was going to fake up this whole thing. Wouldn’t it be more precaution and serious about it? Or they do not have physics, mathematics CGI specialists so they took bunch of children from high school to make it up? -C’mon :D.
Wouldn’t it be much easier to use solid flatten panel with Chinese flag on it and avoid “wave or not wave” issue?
Funny thing is that our “professional” opinions are based upon YouTube-alike videos and images of poor quality filled with compression caused artifacts.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:07 am
“Did the Chinese fake their space walk?”
Wouldn’t surpriseme idf theydid. Notafter their Oly,mpic stunts anfdfaked fireworks, wromng girl singing /not singing etc ..
Would I trust the Chinese propagandists totell thetruth, whole &nuthin’ butt? No way.
Or should that be Noh Wei?
Ah well if the ‘hoaxer beleivers are going to lie about the Moon landing not happening they may as well lie about the Chinese NOT spacewalking too!
They might as well be consisistently wrong.
—–
PS. How about the USA, the Russians and the Chinese all joining forces together to launch the first ever mission to Mars - or a near Earth asteroid?
Friendly competition in space may be good and achieve much but firnedly co-operation may get us even further, sooner and better!
October 10th, 2008 at 9:13 am
#@!@%$ typos! & %$#@!#$@! NOT being able to edit these posts .. * SIGH *
———————-
“Did the Chinese fake their space walk?”
Wouldn’t surprise me if they did. Not after all their Olympic stunts with the faked fireworks, wrong girl singing / not singing etc .. Would I trust the Chinese propagandists to tell the truth, whole & nuthin’ butt? No way.
Or should that be Noh Wei?
Ah well, if the ‘hoax beleivers’ are going to lie about the Moon landing not happening then they may as well lie about the Chinese NOT spacewalking too!
They might as well be consisistently wrong.
—–
PS. How about the USA, the Russians and the Chinese all joining forces together to launch the first ever mission to Mars - or a near Earth asteroid?
Friendly competition in space may be good and achieve much but friendly co-operation may get us even further, sooner and better!
October 10th, 2008 at 9:35 am
@ Drew:
“Im not saying this was filmed u/w, but you can’t tell by movement alone that it wasn’t…”
Actually you can tell very conclusively that it wasn’t filmed underwater by his movements. When/if you you wave your arm under water the movement of the your arm encounters more resistance than air, and obviously much more resistance outside of the atmosphere. This will cause your arm to move, at its joints: shoulder, elbow, wrist, in opposition to its self. i.e. when he waves to the camera his elbow would sway in conjunction with his his forearm and wrist because of the extra resistance imposed by the water. This is not the case in the video though. You can tell quite definitively by the physics of the motion of his arm what kind of environment he was in.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:47 am
All the underwater training runs were done in Russian ‘Orlan’ suits, but the actual spacewalk in the one-and-only Chinese-made suit. Conveniently, one major obvious design change the Chinese made in their model is removing the ‘moon roof’ (the small oval overhead window) on the top of the helmet. You can see in ALL the genuine underwater training pictures, the suits have that moon roof, and on Zhai’s suit, there is no ‘moon roof’ — but the second astronaut WAS wearing a Russian-made ‘Orlan’, and when he briefly pokes his head outside, voila!, there’s a helmet WITH a moon roof.
JimO
www.jamesoberg.com
October 10th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Did anyone see this? A press conference and audio before the blast off? Is this possibly true? http://tech.msn.com/ssprint.aspx?cp-documentid=10815662&imageindex=2
October 11th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Earlier I noted :
“PS. How about the USA, the Russians and the Chinese all joining forces together to launch the first ever mission to Mars - or a near Earth asteroid?”
Of course the downside would be what happens then if World War Three breaks out between China, Russia and the USA while this misson is taking place -although hopefully having such a co-operative mission would decrease the chances of WWIII breakingout to begin with.
‘Apollo-Soyuz’ a model to follow perhaps?
October 13th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
My main argument for why it is fake is this: why would stuff by flying out of the hatch hours after it was opened into zero gravity? Look closely and you can see bubbles detatching from the astronaut’s HELMET, slowly and then speeding up. There’s plenty of other clues. I made a video about it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBL98p0wZ7g
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:06 am
Well, I clearly see the studio lights, I don’t know how you missed them! Fake! Fake! Fake!
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:03 am
Maybe the video was faked because the high technology should not be easily
opened.and the real video is now lying on a secret place in China
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:15 am
At the beginning of the article he says “tinfoil chenshans”.
Just a minor correction, but “chenshan” means “button down shirt”.
What he meant to say was “tinfoil maozis”.
“Maozi” means “hat”.
There ya go. Fixed.
p.s. The walk wasn’t faked but it wouldn’t suprise anyone if China pulled a stunt like that.
November 13th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Did anyone remember the glove that was blown off into the space from Gemini 4 in the 60s?
November 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
china space walk is 100% fake.
November 15th, 2008 at 6:52 am
A good post at http://www.astroengine.com/?p=1531 about this…
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
china went to space? yes.
the footage is fake? yes.
having lived in Beijing for 8 years and seen the chinese CGI opening ceremony fireworks, dub a little singers voice, paint the brown grass green for visiting officials, airbrush their passport photos, lie to their own people about SARS for months, block CNN and BBC web access in China…. etc etc
I know how far china will go to prevent themselves from looking less than perfect.
China has even blocked us here in beijing from being about to visit the youtube pages where the so called “conspiracy theories” are.
Chinese exerts who worked for NASA are even saying this footage is fake check the interview by The Epoch Times with Dr. Qu Zheng.
forget the bubbles, forget the reflections LOOK AT THE FLAG! He isnt even waving it and that thing is flapping around in the wave pool by itself.
what about the verbal slip up? (i am assuming most of you dont speak mandarin, i do) the astronaut says “he has enteres the water”
What about the cloud inconsistencies? one minute the ocean is covered in thick cloud cover, 2 seconds later its a clear day over the pacific?
what about the lack of background noise and the clarity of the audio from “space”? the noise from manned space crafts is deafening, literally, astronauts wear earplugs and still come back to earth with lifelong hearing problems. Listen to audio from russian and american space walks then compare it to the hollow silent clear voices of the chinese astronauts.
I am not saying china doesnt have the resources to go to space, all i am saying is that they pre-filmed this shiny happy perfect footage to make their country proud and distract the world from YET another food poisoning scandal, they werent ready to go to space but they needed to do something, so they did.
dont underestimate china, they act first and think later, its the way things work here with everything from the daily running of a business to emergency space shuttle launches.
My own opinion? After having seen a fair amount of NASA footage of the earth, IMHO the earth in this video looked fake. The lack of any depth of atmosphere, the brightness of the earth on the “unlit” side and the curvature of the earth makes it look more like a video projection onto a sphere (or a texturemapped CG sphere) than real earth footage.
Also, I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but it seemd to me with the flag they were waving, even though it was stiff, it kept flopping down towards the bottom of the frame, away from the earth, where “gravity” shouldn’t be. This would happen if the shuttle was sitting on the ground, and the earth hanging up above it. Whether it was shot underwater or not is hard to say tho. All of the little artifacts floating around could easily be computer generated. Anyone seen star trek?
I’d say there’s a slim chance it wasn’t faked. Propaganda is what the Chinese regime is best at. Oh, hang on, they renamed their “Ministry of Propaganda” to “Ministry of Information”, so I guess its just called “information” these days.
November 17th, 2008 at 2:06 am
I still can’t believe up to this date people are still talkign about the “wavering” of the flag
Mythbuster already BUSTED it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMBCfuKs9i8
The momentum of waving the flag will keep the flag waving even in a vacuum space
Still dont’ believe it?
only way to find out is when they’re on moon
November 19th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Ok everybody,
Look at this version of the video - Much closer footage of taikonauts ‘working’.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=fvz0GZPNIF0
Now, at approx 5:48 - 5:52 just after some speech, watch the right-hand taikonaut’s helmet (he held the flag and then passed it to the taikonaut in the module).
Now everybody LOOK at and THINK about what you see coming OUT from his helmet.
I will not tell you what it is because it is OBVIOUS.
This is just one of the MANY such examples contained in the ’space footage’.
Now please argue that the mission was not faked and furthur entertain us intelligent people who can USE and TRUST our own judgement to arrive at the truth.