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China's First Spacewalk
Smivs writes "The BBC reports that China will launch its third manned space mission in late September, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
The Shenzhou VII flight will feature
China's first-ever space walk, which will be broadcast live with cameras inside and outside the spacecraft.
For the spacewalk, two crew members will go into the spacecraft's vacuum module. One yuhangyuan (astronaut) will carry out the spacewalk; the other is there to monitor the activity and assist in case of an emergency.
Two types of spacesuits — one made in China, the other from Russia — will be carried up on the flight.
It is unclear why China has opted for two different types of spacesuit.
Spaceflight analyst Dr Morris Jones commented that China might want to test the suits against each other. Alternatively, he said, it might not be ready or willing to fly a mission exclusively with its own suits."
Why not? Most live events have a delay, because sometimes bad shit happens. I don't think the Chinese state not making its own impromptu snuff film has anything to do with their censorship practices.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Yes, but in uncontrolled media markets, there is an incentive to keep that delay as short as possible. If you don't have it as close to live as possible, the next guy will, or some blogger. When the President comes on to give a live address, it has maybe a 5-second delay, not an hour. This is, in part, how some live shows occasionally get into trouble - remember the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" as the SuperBowl a few years back?
When Armstrong stepped onto the Moon, he was live to the entire world.
One major difference? You joke surely;
1. The engines were on the stack, not the orbiter. The stack could (and did) fly without the orbiter at all
2. There were four boosters instead of two.
3. The boosters were liquid, not solid fueled
Even the link you provided as alleged evidence that it was just stolen technology acknowledges these very major differences.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
As NASA has defined it, only US space-going individuals may claim the title "astronaut." Further, they cannot be civilians, at least according to an article in the latest Wired.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-09/ff_starcity?currentPage=6
Well on the manned Moon mission for the US. If something happened and they couldn't have returned to home, they would have turned off all contact with them and Nixon had a wonderful speech to give about their deaths preprepared to give in this case even if they were still alive but stranded on the moon.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
> I doubt that the film is going to be "Live"
The Shenzhou 6 launch in October 2005 was the first to be broadcast live in China, so they may yet surprise you.
After all. if something does go wrong there is little that can be done to hide it. This isn't Leonov's era - telemetry and communications will be under constant scrutiny.
I heard they had to postpone the spacewalk until they found new astronauts... Turns out the ones they already had qualified were under-aged. :-)
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
There were actually extensive plans made for that very contingency. The speech (draft) was written for Nixon by William Safire. In my opinion, it is one of the finest pieces of writing I've ever seen:
"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.
In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."