Personal Dork Assistant

Space Oddities

Didn't want to jinx things by talking about it early, just in case 楊利偉 turned into a charcoal briquette on entry or something, because the success of a space mission totally depends on my superstitions. Anyway, China's first manned space mission was a success, mostly because it produced plenty of propaganda footage where the good soldier stiffly recited his carefully scripted lines from low earth orbit. Meanwhile, the launch of a new crew for the International Space Station was pretty much ignored by the media. So the ISS isn't even doing its job as a publicity draw. The Slashdot reaction was the usual kooky mix of psycho nationalism and geeky techno-lust.

Everyone knows that this is mostly a publicity stunt, but that's not to say that nothing was accomplished scientifically. Kung-pao chicken, in space!

The one thing that bugs me is the insistance on calling the guy a taikonaut. Now, either go all the way and use the full Chinese term tai-kon-ren (太空人), or just use the English term "astronaut" already.