On September 28, Reuters posted a story about the 'spacewalk' and traveling of the Chinese astronauts. Everybody was cheering and the space trip was accepted as is, including the space walk.
In the US, we had a lengthy introduction to space travel. We saw empty lift-offs and fires and short voyages with chimps before we ever considered sending a human being up into the darkness. Even the USSR sent a dog up first. I think it's name was Fido.
We watched as Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the Space Shuttle programs send up men and women in ever increasingly complex vehicles and equipment. We saw these live. We also saw the disappointments and failures. We learned from our mistakes. But we made no mistake in taking every precaution to protect our travelers.
On the other hand, the Chinese---to some extent like the Soviets---kept most things secret and then provided television footage of the successful manned space mission. Somehow, preliminary 'learning' programs weren't necessary. Maybe the Chinese, again like the Soviets, built their technology on the shoulders of stolen technology from the US. I somehow doubt we gave any of them the details of our space programs.
And the Chinese slept overnight and had space walks. Except, the filmed views of the astronauts overnight in the capsules were shown on television before lift off happened. How is this possible?
Well, I think most of the entire effort was filmed in a studio. Sad to say, the communist mentality is not particularly innovative. They had to film the entire space trip beforehand because they didn't expect success. And we should treat their claims likewise.
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