A news story describing a successful launch of China’s long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground.
The country’s official news agency Xinhua posted the article on its Web site Thursday, and remained there for much of the day before it was taken down.
A staffer from the Xinhuanet.com Web site who answered the phone Thursday said the posting of the article was a “technical error” by a technician. The staffer refused to give his name as is common among Chinese officials.
The Shenzhou 7 mission, which will feature China’s first-ever spacewalk, ended up launching Thursday from Jiuquan in northwestern China late in the evening.
Here is cartoonist/blogger Guaiguai’s take on this one:
Translated caption:
“Get up, my dear!”
“It is too early to watch Shenzhou 7’s launch. Why do you wake me up?”
“Early? The Shenzhou 7 has launched…”
“What? I though it would not launch until the evening of the 25th.”
“It’s September 27th already. Read this Xinhua report.”
“But I went to bed on the night of 24th…”
“It’s really just September 25 today.”
“Shenzhou 7 must have carried a time-machine, across time and space and made it to September 27th. How powerful our motherland is!”
