Shenzhou 7?

[Echnaton]

Agreed. Since the all the technology was developed fifty years ago, all that is needed to do a space walk is to have the industrial organization required to implement it.  And if there is one strength that China has, it is industrial organization. 

In many ways, China is similar to the US of the sixties with its rapidly growing economy supporting an increased standard of living for many of its citizens and providing growth in the government coffers that can be used to fund impressive, if speculative ventures.

[Donnie B.]

Unless I am missing something, I really don't see what is so hard about a spacewalk once you have the technology to put a human being into space. Surely all that is required is a capsule that can be safely opened in space, with an exit hatch that is large enough to accommodate an astronaut in full spacesuit, and either some way of tethering the astronaut safely to the craft or some way of enabling the astronaut to return safely to the craft without tethering them.

Well, there's also the small matter of the spacesuit and the associated life support equipment.  The latter can be provided through an umbilical for this type of space walk, but the suit itself is not entirely trivial.  However, these days you don't have to start from scratch.

[cjameshuff]

It's not a matter of just hopping out the airlock, no. But it's not a massive leap when you've got several successful manned missions accomplished, a space station testbed in orbit, considerable experience by others to draw on, etc...

[Noldi400]

They probably didn't do it this way, but is there any reason they couldn't have just contacted Playtex (or whomever's making them now) and had a suit or six made?

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

They probably didn't do it this way, but is there any reason they couldn't have just contacted Playtex (or whomever's making them now) and had a suit or six made?

No need for that, as the Russians gave them a load of advice and technical assistance.

[Laurel]

It looks like Vincent "completely forgot about this website" again.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

It looks like Vincent "completely forgot about this website" again.

No doubt he's found something else to disbelieve or debunk. I await his return with interest.

[ka9q]

Well, there's also the small matter of the spacesuit and the associated life support equipment.

You noticed that omission too, huh?

Even pressure suits are getting easier to make simply because the growing body of published experience means fewer unknowns. There are certainly many good tailors in China, and I'm sure at least a few of them have learned how to make very good pressure suits. (I wonder if I can buy one in Hong Kong?) Their expense is partly due to exotic materials like PTFE/fiberglass cloth (beta cloth) and metalized Kapton film and partly to all the labor, but I bet the biggest factor is the rather obvious need for some serious quality control.

Every crewed spacecraft has its share of Criticality 1 items (failure results in loss of crew and vehicle; no redundancy) but I can't think of a Criticality 1 item whose failure could kill you more quickly than a pressure suit and its associated life support system. Even when the life support system in a spacecraft cabin fails, you still have some time to fix the problem. But a pressure suit has maybe 2 cubic feet (50 liters) of unoccupied volume, and that's not much to help maintain pressure against a leak or to dilute CO₂ below the toxic concentration. I don't know how much time an Apollo astronaut would have had to activate his OPS were his PLSS to suddenly expire, but it couldn't have been very long.

[ka9q]

No doubt he's found something else to disbelieve or debunk. I await his return with interest.

Go easy on the guy. He's been busily producing some reasonably good (by Youtube standards, anyway) Apollo hoax debunking videos.

He just did one on the film slate at the beginning of the 16mm film reel from Apollo 11. Apparently Bart Sibrel found another of his phantom smoking guns: the date was before the start of the mission.

Now I find it hard to believe that Sibrel, supposedly a video producer, couldn't figure this out. But you know how the man works.

[twik]

That's what perplexes me about Vincent - he's clearly smart, and can be very logical at times. But, for some reason, he wants to be the one to prove someone's been faking space flight.

[ka9q]

I remember being young once.

[Donnie B.]

I remember being young once.

I used to remember that.

[Andromeda]

I was never that young.  I was always as I am now.   

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

I remember being young once.

It's overhyped AND wasted on the young.

[Echnaton]

I remember being young once.

My motto: You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.