defrog: (science boom)
defrog ([personal profile] defrog) wrote2008-09-27 08:54 pm

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE ARE WALKING IN SPACE

Here’s what we were watching this afternoon in a PCCW shop whilst upgrading our broadband package to include city-wide Wi-Fi/HSPA:

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That’s taikonaut Zhai Zhigang in the Shenzhou VII capsule making China’s first space-walk.

Assuming it’s real, I mean. Evidently the official state Xinhua News Agency faked the lift-off before it actually happened. They just can’t leave anything to chance, can they?

FUN FACT: Once, I visited a space museum in Guangzhou, which featured a multimedia demo of their rocket program. They also showed some great propaganda footage of the development of their air force, which ended with the big dogfight battle scene from Independence Day. Seriously.

FUN FACT:
The local HK media has been doing some specials on the background of the Shenzhou VII mission using the theme to Star Trek: TNG.

Deja vu,

This is dF

[identity profile] bosswriter.livejournal.com 2008-09-27 01:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Go China! Not that I am pleased that the NASA has sat on it's hands for decades about going back to the moon or Mars, but I am pleases to see someone on this ball moving forward on space exploration.

Anyone know the Vegas odds for who gets to the moon first this time around?

[identity profile] def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com 2008-09-28 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
I don't know the odds, but with all the efforts by private entrepreneurs to build better space vehicles via the X Prize Foundation, I wonder if the next lunar landing or manned Mars mission will be from one of them instead of a govt program.

[identity profile] ziyda.livejournal.com 2008-09-27 05:20 pm (UTC)(link)
*screams yippeee!* ahem, sorry
I knew it; life is all a movie.

[identity profile] garbagecanmusic.livejournal.com 2008-09-29 02:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Is everything propaganda over there? Not to say that it's not all propaganda stateside, but...Independence Day? Really?

[identity profile] def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com 2008-09-30 01:08 am (UTC)(link)
Really. This was six or seven years ago, so I can't say they still use the same video now, but at the time, we were gobsmacked. And not everything is propaganda, no, but given the level of govt control over media, it might as well be.