Chinese Report New Successes in Space... Just One Problem

[Pangloss]

... they hadn't even launched yet.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151564/xinhua_runs_spacewalk_story_before_astronauts_leave_earth.html

 

China's official Xinhua News Agency ran a story on Thursday announcing ground controllers were tracking Chinese astronauts sent aloft for the country's first spacewalk, complete with details and quotes from the astronauts.

 

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.

 

No matter how things change, they always stay the same!

 

Here's a similar story from the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3082804/China-fakes-reports-from-space.html

 

The Xinhua agency, which has sometimes been accused of carrying state propaganda, took down the story and blamed it on a "technical error".

 

Cute how a "technical error" can produce actual quotes from the future. To heck with space walks, these guys are time travelers!

[bascule]

PRAVDA, it means "truth"

[CaptainPanic]

Oh well... I guess Fox News always tells the truth. Right?

 

But I agree that the Xinhua story is pretty sad

 

(It's easy pointing for me, not many people even know the names of our crappy news agencies).

[Mr Skeptic]

So they got confused between a.m. and p.m. No biggie, I do that all the time

[ParanoiA]

They're just trying to pull off their own version of our Moon Landing hoax.

[Pangloss]

Haha. Maybe they're taking their jealousy for the American way just a weeeee bit too far!

[Sisyphus]

Hey, check this out:

 

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/mccain_wins_debate.html

 

Apparently the McCain campaign had ads on the Wall Street Journal website that said "McCain wins debate!" and a quote from campaign manager Rick Davis saying, "McCain won the debate, hands down."

 

Eerily similar, no? Maybe John McCain and the Chinese space program have the same publicist.

[Pangloss]

Rofl. Well, it's an ad, not a news story, but in the same spirit, perhaps.

[iNow]

It is strange. We're so full of malarky these days that we're pre-emptively re-writing history.

[Mr Skeptic]

It is strange. We're so full of malarky these days that we're pre-emptively re-writing history.

 

Well, I'm sure it is easier to pre-emptively rewrite history, than to try to rewrite it after the fact. Ideally, though, you'd want to do your rewriting in realtime.