Shenzhou 7?

[Laurel]

They tricked us into thinking they had sent a man to the moon just before Apollo 8, but they revealed it was actually just a tape recorder on board. Gene Cernan said it "scared the hell out of us."

Source please? I know the USSR included tapes of human voices on some of their early unmanned flights to test the communications system, but when did this happen?

Edit: I think I found it in Wikipedia, but the article also says that "it was soon clear, however, that these were test transmissions between two ground control centers with the Zond 6 intercepting and relaying the transmissions."

[carpediem]

Isn't it possible to send an unmanned spacecraft into orbit and then have the tracking stations simply believe it's manned?

Yes, but it's risky. What if the spacecraft develops a minor technical problem that is both observable from the ground and potentially fixable by a crew.
What if it crashes; you then have the Capricorn 1 style problem of three excess astronauts.
What if it lands outside of China, empty?

No, if you are going to fake Shenzhou 7 you put the three astronauts in it and replay pre-recorded footage of the EVA at the apropriate times. Much simpler.

[VincentMcConnell]

Here's some stuff I did to restore color to the Chinese spacewalk photo and then to show that underwater CAN be made to look like real life.
I believe China played around with the green curves a bit, but when I restored the blue fairly close to the ISS, you can see how the foreground originally looked. A LOT like it was shot underwater, if I do say so, myself.


Then here I took a Johnson Space Center photo of some STS astronauts training for a spacewalk and showed how it is possible to reduce the blue from the image to make it appear like it was NOT shot underwater.


Here is what I did:
First, I reduced some of the blue from the image. That left me pretty "greened", so I went ahead and reduced that and then went down and down until I found a fairly close color image. Next, I added some red to the image. Red is the first color in the spectrum to disappear underwater and so some of it must be restored to get a good view of how this photo would have looked if not taken underwater.

[Laurel]

Why did they need to fake Shenzhou 7? Were China's previous manned flights fake too?

[VincentMcConnell]

Isn't it possible to send an unmanned spacecraft into orbit and then have the tracking stations simply believe it's manned?

Yes, but it's risky. What if the spacecraft develops a minor technical problem that is both observable from the ground and potentially fixable by a crew.
What if it crashes; you then have the Capricorn 1 style problem of three excess astronauts.
What if it lands outside of China, empty?

It's China. If something would have gone wrong, they probably would do the same thing that happens in Capricorn one... Kill the astronauts... This is a country operating behind a veil of secrecy. Remember Stalin? He used to just erase people from history if he wanted them gone. Who's to stop the Chinese from just saying "Our brave heroes died in space!"

No, if you are going to fake Shenzhou 7 you put the three astronauts in it and replay pre-recorded footage of the EVA at the apropriate times. Much simpler.

Possibly. I'm not sure they can't get someone into space, but people don't realize how dangerous a spacewalk is and how correct and functional EVERYTHING has to be. All that protects you from certain death is a simple pressure suit. Maybe that is how they did it. I don't really know exactly. I can state that I firmly hypothesize that footage was shot underwater.

[carpediem]

What if it lands outside of China, empty?

[VincentMcConnell]

Why did they need to fake Shenzhou 7? Were China's previous manned flights fake too?

The only previous one was Shenzhou 5. I haven't done much research into it, but if I remember correctly, there's only footage of the astronaut in freefall for about a minute at a time. What's to stop them from shooting it like they did Apollo 13?
Maybe 5 was real, but simply sitting in a cabin and then the next mission actually getting out and floating around in a suit is two completely different ball games. I'm not here to say I know everything about how this was hoaxed and that it was. It's simply my hypothesize... my hunch, my belief. I think there is sufficient evidence to suggest this was filmed underwater.

[VincentMcConnell]

What if it lands outside of China, empty?

Sorry! I forgot to answer that.
Well, I don't know. But simply targeting a recovery area is not hard. I can do it in spaceflight simulators. It's all about knowing where to fire the retro engines. And maybe the spacecraft had explosives on it. If it looked like it was going off course, couldn't an RSO blow it up during interface and say the heatshield failed?

[Laurel]

No, Shenzhou 5 and Shenzhou 6 were both manned.

[VincentMcConnell]

No, Shenzhou 5 and Shenzhou 6 were both manned.

\

Six was manned? I didn't even know about it. I will do some research on it right now.
For now, however, I want to stay on the topic of discussing Shenzhou 7.

[Laurel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_6

[carpediem]

Why did they need to fake Shenzhou 7?

They didn't, but the Epoch Times saw an opportunity to propagandise against the regime.

[Laurel]

Maybe 5 was real, but simply sitting in a cabin and then the next mission actually getting out and floating around in a suit is two completely different ball games.

Isn't this what happened with Gemini 3 and 4? Sitting in a cabin during one mission and then performing an EVA on the next one?

[VincentMcConnell]

Why did they need to fake Shenzhou 7?

I don't know, but probably because they wanted to accomplish "EVA" to make themselves look superior in the world of spaceflight. China wants to establish themselves as a world power. Russia and the US had already made flights into space, so China probably felt obligated to start a space program. It is my hypothesis that for some reason or another, these flights weren't real. And my evidence about Shenzhou 7 is what I have to back that.


--EDITED TO FIX FORMATTING PROBLEM WHERE MY RESPONSE WAS IN QUOTATION--

[VincentMcConnell]

Maybe 5 was real, but simply sitting in a cabin and then the next mission actually getting out and floating around in a suit is two completely different ball games.

Isn't this what happened with Gemini 3 and 4? Sitting in a cabin during one mission and then performing an EVA on the next one?

Of course, but Gemini was a public program. If there was something wrong with the capsule that didn't allow life support or the suits were defective, the whole world would know about. Since we only have what China says as proof, we're supposed to just take their word for it. Gemini 4 was a VERY daring stunt, but because the whole world had knowledge of our equipment and we are a public space program, we can't do anything short of actually EVAing or going to the moon.