[torsoboy]

It looks like the largest new agency in China has already written up their story about the Chinese space flight, complete with quotes from the astronauts and command center. They accidentally let the story slip out early... whoops!

Carrying a Sept. 27 dateline that declared Xinhua reporters were "sleepless in the middle of the Pacific Ocean" aboard a Chinese tracking ship, the story -- published on Xinhua's Web site on Sep. 25 at 9:04 a.m. -- offers a gripping account of conversation between ground controllers and astronauts aboard the Shenzhou VII spacecraft, citing the breathless silence aboard the Yuan Wang No. 1 tracking ship as observers waited for the craft to appear on its instruments.

The ship even established contact with the spacecraft 12 seconds ahead of schedule, said the report, which was written by reporters Wu Dengfeng, Mei Shixiong and Wang Yushan.

In reality, the astronauts didn't actually blast off until 9:00 p.m. on Thursday night, Beijing time, according to an Associated Press report -- about 12 hours after the Xinhua spacewalk story first appeared.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...ave_earth.html

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...-23109,00.html

Kinda of puts a bit of distrust on anything they are going to say about what happens on the actual flight.

[Eriamjh]

Nothing new. Steve Jobs is dead, too.

[Maflynn]

Yeah, its not faking it, they just compose a story beforehand. I'm sure many news outlets do the same for scheduled events such as these.

[ctt1wbw]

Sort of like Microsoft saying that they're releasing a stable and secure operating system.

[Dakar V]

Call me when they can fake a moonlanding.

[ctt1wbw]

Hell, O.J. already did that one.

[JellyBeen]

If you recall the day 911 happened, the BBC reported that building 7 had fallen 20 minutes before it had actually happened!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqqhX8gkhE0&fmt=18
The news networks are scripted, what a shame.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Maflynn 

Yeah, its not faking it, they just compose a story beforehand. I'm sure many news outlets do the same for scheduled events such as these.

With fake quotes?!

[Maflynn]

With pre-seeded quotes.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

With fake quotes?!

Not fake, at least not if the astronauts stick to their written script

-t

[Jawbone54]

But instead of botching a line, they botch a successful orbit...

[torsoboy]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Not fake, at least not if the astronauts stick to their written script

-t

lol... I hadn't even considered that they would have a script. makes sense though. especially in a communist country.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

lol... I hadn't even considered that they would have a script. makes sense though. especially in a communist country.

Well, it's not like Armstrong's "One small step" line was spur-of-the-moment, you know.

[brassplayersrock²]

no, it wasn't. hmm, what to do with many many hours of going towards the moon when nothing critical is happening. hmmm, think of **** to say when walking on the moon is what i'd do. oh yeah.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Maflynn 

Yeah, its not faking it, they just compose a story beforehand. I'm sure many news outlets do the same for scheduled events such as these.

With that many details? No, that's called making stuff up. The Jobs obit did not include, say, a fictional account of how he died. It's one thing to have a boilerplate that includes information that will definitely be factually true and blanks for facts that have not yet happened, but composing an entire story — complete with past tense quotes — before the event is something else.

[MacNNUK]

I hope they have not taken any milk into orbit with them !

[JoshuaZ]

I wonder how many Chinese people could fit on the moon....

My guess would be 20 billion.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Well, it's not like Armstrong's "One small step" line was spur-of-the-moment, you know.

Boy did he get a lot of smack over that, even though he said it correctly. It's interesting that it took 50 years for the audio clip to be cleaned up and prove that Armstrong said "for a man" and not just "for man."

[zro]

50 years? So they recorded that audio in '58? I knew it!!

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

Boy did he get a lot of smack over that, even though he said it correctly. It's interesting that it took 50 years for the audio clip to be cleaned up and prove that Armstrong said "for a man" and not just "for man."

Sorry. That didn't happen.

Originally Posted by NASA

In 2006, with a great deal of attendant media attention, journalist/ entrepreneur Peter Shann Ford claimed to have located the 'a' in the waveform of Neil's transmission. Subsequently, more rigorous analyses of the transmission were undertaken by a number of people, including some with professional experience with audio waveforms and, most importantly, audio spectrograms. As of October 2006, none of these analyses support Ford's conclusion.