I'm probably going to be called an idiot for this, but where are the stars?

lpxxfaintxx

I call shenanigoats! That earth is just a painted backdrop! And I think I saw a stagehand stumble onto the set!

homerjay

@helldiver:
Yeah, except now the US is so broke to afford any more space missions. And for your information, China owns us!

pipper

I wonder if the "Space Ice Cream Treats" they have onboard come with extra melamine?

Kspraydad

OK, China went into space. What do the people on the ISS say about it? What do you mean they're gone?! Call 007!

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

If Russia and America hadn't been doing doing this for 40 years I might have been more impressed.

SgtToastie

@Mr.Purple: I don't think it is, I think this was all done in a studio. I like how the announcer keeps on informing us its "live".

Xaldian

Is space really that well lit?

Mr.Purple

welcome to retro-60s-space. Everyone's doing it!

helldiver

2008 is really a big year for China.

lulu321

@homerjay: Hey! I'm right! If you look really close you can see the word Czechoslovakia written really small over a country on the backdrop and we all that Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic in 1993!

homerjay

ok unless they found ET or something extraordinary, I don't see whats the big deal other than china can now poop in broken outer space porter potties like the rest of the super powers of the world...

Boots_Mcoy

Yes, a flag Can flap in the Wind in Space With the space clouds Blowing Space wind In SPACE!

XxRiXoNxX182

Be proud, Third World!

Atomische

@Alchemistmerlin:

Um, we've done that. Many decades ago.

Besides, China probably faked it.

Eric1285

Yay, more proof of the US falling behind. Just sad.

Alchemistmerlin

was this video also posted hours earlier then the actual space walk ?.

just wait until the Mythbusters confirm this as a heax !

xenoastro

How cute. ::pats Chinese on head::

The Earth's albedo obscures the starfield. That's why you never see the stars in these videos.

quantumbits

Looks just as fake as the moon landing!

Earthslide

@spundot: Sadly, it is.

lulu321

@spundot: ZING!

Kspraydad

@lulu321: 2008 is a really big year for juvenile kidney stones.

spundot

Why does it seem so professionally lit...

kickassy

@Xaldian: That is what I've been thinking...

Mr.Purple

@Alchemistmerlin:

Country A reaches X milestone 40 years ago and is currently at Y. Country B reaches X milestone today (or claims to have) and has not yet reached Y.

Please explain how Country A has "fallen behind".

Perhaps you meant to say "lost its lead"?

Regardless, it's either fake or poisoned if it comes from China.

Eric1285

I belong to an organization that promulgates the fact that no one has landed on the moon and no one has ever walked in space. This all is staged and the only reason China is doing this now is that the shoot set is most likely where the Olympics was held. They waited until everyone went home and the cleaners picked up the last of the hot dog wrappers. Oh, yeah, the earth is flat, too.

MosDeaf

@homerjay: That just means they made it to fake space sooner than any of us could have anticipated.

mhlaxp

I don't see any Alien space craft, how come?

uomolinux

@Alchemistmerlin: So we walked in space 45 years ago, and WE'RE far behind China which just did it. Perhaps I'm missing the /sarcasm tag.

Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->

Nice

thefutureisnow

@Eric1285:

You're right, we did do it quite some time ago, but now NASA is broke and the Chinese are catching up. China catching up = US falling behind.

Also: HURR DURR FAKED LURR MOON LANDING.

Seriously, don't be like those moon conspiracy jackasses.

Alchemistmerlin

Props china!!!!

wetworker

@MosDeaf:

The Earth isn't flat, it's a globe sittin' on the back of a turtle!

helldiver

@Earthslide: Wow real witty

stubbze

In the 70's, Americans made fun of the Japanese, and the stigma was that anything made in Japan was worthless. It's that cocky arrogance that let the humble Japanese completely take over and dominate everything from American car manufacturers to electronics...

The tone of the comments posted here just goes to show that it's going to happen yet again! ;)

Migo

Kudos to China on their accomplishment, but I too find it a little creepy that China decided to substitute astronauts that were cuter than the ones on the actual mission when making the video.

frigg

@XxRiXoNxX182: Oh come on. Watch the Myth Busters episode about faking the moon landing.

Mikael

Congratulations to China, it might sound cliche, but we should really be doing all these things as an entire race of humans instead of countries. It's just... retarded :P

radikaled

@Boots_Mcoy:
You mean US and Russia?

gothamdarkknight

@helldiver: You think you're so smart, what's the turtle sitting on? Oh right, it's turtles all the way down. ;-)

glebec

@lpxxfaintxx: There's not enough contrast between the light reflected from earth and the space itself to see the stars. This was one of the arguments to accredit the thesis of an american moon-landing made in studio, but it has been debunked since (see google).

w3c.org

HE said.. alot of brainpower is being wasted haha

swoyekr

@SgtToastie:

Thanks, your counter argument made me laugh.

@Eric1285:

"Falling" not "fallen". The closer other nations get to the lead we once had, the worse our state of affairs is going to be in attempting to get that lead back. And, as I said, isn't NASA broke now?

Also: Prove that it's fake. They've provided a video showing an event. Unless you can show some real clue that it's fake, then you're just as much of an idiot as the moon conspiracy nutters.

Alchemistmerlin

@radikaled: What, like the ISS? China needs no unity!

SgtToastie

@lpxxfaintxx: to qualify w3c.org's comments, there's too much contrast for a camera. Pure direct sunlight bouncing off a white spacecraft and the planet earth, with no atmospheric attenuation, is going to be BRIGHT. The astronauts (and likely the video camera) have very dark visors to account for this.

Look at the full moon on a clear night. There's too much glare to see the stars right next to the moon. Look slightly away, at the night sky, and your eyes have enough dynamic range to make out the stars. And that's your naked eye; no camera in existence has nearly as much dynamic range as a human eyeball.

There are however ways of photographing both stars and super-bright objects in the same scene: compositing multiple exposures. But that wouldn't work with video, obviously.

To the astronauts, the starfield will be absolutely brilliant... if they aren't looking right at the earth and spacecraft at the same time.

glebec

@Alchemistmerlin: Thanks, you're logic made me laugh.

SgtToastie

@SgtToastie:
of which China was denied admission.

gothamdarkknight

@kickassy:
Doesn't look very profesionally lit to me.

What most people think of as "professionally lit" is diffuse. Lots of diffuse light. If you look at the video you'll see that they aren't in direct sun. That's the first step in diffuse lighting. Then you need a giant diffuse light source to brighten your subject... hmmmmmm where are we going to find a giant lightly colored reflective and brightly lit object. OOoo! The earth!

Ok now we need a bit of diffuse lighting to fill in from the opposite direction. If only there were a giant white reflective object to bounce more light up onto them to fill out the shadows... hmmm where are we going to find a large lightly colored reflective object. Ooo! The spaceship.

im.thatoneguy

@Alchemistmerlin:

And if he shows that it's fake he also has to account for:
A) It clearly being in a vacuum.
and
B) It clearly being in 0 G.

So either... the Chinese airlifted the world's lightest and large vacuum chamber and managed to film 10 minutes of 0G in a single take in what would have to be a marvel of engineering or they went to space.

Airlifting a vacuum chamber large enough to contain the astronauts would be a greater engineering feat than shooting them into space.

Also... there was that business where the rocket actually took off. Was tracked by the world's radar systems and was visible from earth. So the expensive part already happened.

im.thatoneguy

I never noticed this before, but Hu Jintao bears an uncanny resemblance to Ricky Gervais.

schtum

It's great how they make fun of us lazy Americans at around 7:40. Back to watching Cops…

ShreelaMarstuno

At the 9:00 mark, that shot with the 3 astronauts - only the one in the middle looks real. The other two guys are animatronics.

shaneschofield

I can only imagine how proud the Chinese people are today, seeing their space program making rapid progress. I'm stoked for China, and I hope that their progress lights a bit of a fire under the US program.

I do think it's unfortunate that they're being so heavily scripted about it. Did anybody else notice that the astronaut was clearly reading prepared responses to Hu's prepared questions?

MikeK

Just for perspective - Russia did their first spacewalk in March of 1965, and the US joined the club in June of the same year. So at this point China is only 43 years behind (possibly more given that their space suits are essentially Russian).

That said, it's a remarkable achievement nevertheless.

pwnz0r

@ShreelaMarstuno: I heard that too.

I think there's a lot of great talent here in the US. The problem is, how useful is it when many of the jobs where these talents may be applied are going overseas? Corporations crashing one after the other. Real estate that's not worth shit anymore. Also, the universities where one would gain such "talent" are charging way too much. Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't education basically free in China? Or at least a hell of a lot less than $250,000.00 for a 4 year degree?

apeguero

@pwnz0r: 43 years and counting for everyone else. :p .

Kyang

Anyone else notice the narrator say, "he can has a hold" ?

1:12 of the video. Awesome

rizzle

Do you think the shuttle has a little gold "Made In China" sticker on it?

drewdoog

Xenophobes of the world unite.

Oh my God! China made it to space! The sky is falling!

USA! USA! USA!

Sheesh, with some of the comments here, you get to thinking how arrogant some people are in thinking that space belongs only to the US.

vinzer

What an outrage! This shouldn't count and their achievement should be revoked. The astronauts are all obviously under 16...

ptyork

i hope they got a chance to spacewalk... if i remember corectly, their first manned mission into space was in a ship that had no windows.. :(

dedalus987

Is that an iPhone on his left wist at 1:16?

SpiffySteve

@Xaldian: Like the U.S lunar landing?

exer881

@Mr.Purple: Are you effing serious?? Where do you think the light on earth comes from?

hsuperman

@SpiffySteve:
it should be ipod touch

zxdxz

Decades late, and fashionably garbed in rented Soviet Tech the Chinese have made it to space on their own! Take That Europe!

Amuro

To the people who thinks this is fake: Look at the earth in the background. . . It is moving slightly. . .

--Tito--

@apeguero: Seriously... where the hell are you going for $250,000?!??!? I could understand 100,000-150,000, but not 250,000. Most universities run in the sub-100,000 range after scholarships, and the Ivy leagues give out enough scholarships if you're smart enough to get in to make money a moot point.

Education may not cost any money in China (I'm pretty sure), but it sure as hell isn't "free." Research the culture for 2 seconds and you'll understand completly.

whiteknight89

@xenoastro:

Easy experiment to show why stars are not visible on space walk, moon landing photos/videos.

Go outside at night or to a dark club. Take a picture of a friend (the normal "We're sooo trashed" picture) from a few feet away. Make sure that the friend is not up against a wall, but that there is "space" behind him/her/it. The space can be trees, the neighbor's house, a dancer sliding down a pole - your choice. You camera, set on auto, will probably flash.

Look at the picture, can you see trees, vinyle siding, and silicon? Probably, all you see is blackness.

Now, was your picture taken somewhere interesting or in front of a black backdrop?

rwyuan

Hey, next thing you know they'll have indoor plumbing and microwave ovens!

I'd be much more impressed if they could show us all how the heck they're feeding all those people!

EricAlder

At 3:04 something is passing by visible in the right astronaut's visor.

3:56 an object passes from below spacecraft and behind Earth.

4:02 another one.

4:30 another one on a different orbit.

Are these stars? Moon?

future-proof

im no expert, but the lighting seems off, the way the earth is positioned seems off, even space is too black there would be stars or something no? ...just looks very fake, like that Iran missile launch picture from a few months ago..

JewelBabarong

Although people have been in space for decades already, only the United States and Russia have ever sent people to space. All other countries have piggy-backed on the US and Russia's space programs. China is now the third country in the world to have sent people to space.

CamilleStag

Seemed real fake. The lighting was different from the many videos we have seen from the NASA space station and Hubble repairs. Turn the picture upside down and it looks like the two Chinese were hanging off the prop spaceship. (Remember the fantastic effects they did at the intro of the Olympics? Well....) And the astronaut at the end talking to the President of China - he was reading the scripted text off the papers he was holding!

StephanoHippocampu