PFlight2000 - Soaring through Life in Switzerland: Oktober 2008

Freitag, 24. Oktober 2008

Chinese bubbles in space

The Chinese are a very proud race. Actually they're so proud that their pride sometimes stands in their way. This can either end in tears, but that's not what I want to show you. I want to make you laugh.
About a month ago the Chinese sent a couple of Taikonauts (Chinese for astronaut) into space. The Chinese were very proud of that, as it was their second mission where they sent men into space. In fact they were so very proud that they even published a news-story including the detailed dialogue between the Taikonauts - hours before the spaceship even left the ground. Read the AP-story about this.
Now, it seems that this wasn't the only goof in Chinese publicity for this mission. Watch the video below: Right at the beginning - in the first one or two seconds - you can see an air bubble rising from the exit for the Taikonaut. This phenomenom appears again at minutes 5.52, 6.44 and 7.19. I havent't been in space myself yet - and probably never will - but this is the first time I've seen something like this.

I want to make something clear: I don't doubt that the Chinese actually were in space. Several nations are watching the skies, they would have told the Chinese not to tell lies. But to me it seems like the space-walk was re-performed (or pre-performed?) in a water tank. Maybe something happened to the original video - or there wasn't any? Or the Taikonauts never really left their space ship? The last possibility is, that the Chinese have filmed a phenomenon that no-one has ever seen before. Questions and questions... We will probably never know the answer.

Samstag, 18. Oktober 2008

Queen & Paul Rodger

I know I’ve been awful quiet for the past few weeks. There are several reasons for this. For one I’ve just been too busy at work – I had an exhibition in Germany for a weekend in September, and then we had our own exhibition for three weekends in our company. So spare time was very limited. For the other reason: I’ve been busy learning HTML and relating stuff. What this means might be pretty clear – think fast! (Sorry for the dig...)
But here I am, back at blogging and photographing!
It’s been almost three weeks now that Queen & Paul Rodgers played their concert in Zurich’s Hallenstadion. And as a big Queen and Bad Company-Fan it was clear for me to get tickets for me and a friend.
The sound was great, the band played lots of old Queen songs (which I still managed to sing along), some songs from Free and Bad Company (Paul’s former bands), and also some songs from the new album The Cosmos Rocks.
Here are some impressions: