I don't know, and haven't watched the video myself, but some Chinese bloggers think so:
Two seconds into the video from CCTV, bubble-like objects rose from the hatch as it sprung open. At 5 min 49 second, a bubble attached to the astronaut's helmet. At 6 min 42 seconds, bubbles swiftly came out of the cabin. On the left corner of the video, bubbles gushed out at an angle at 7 min 17 seconds into the video.
A blogger, who is a physicist, commented in a Chinese Epoch Times article that, assuming the operation was conducted in the water, the bubbles rose faster than they would have if the water was not propelled using a wave-blower. Wave blowers are commonly used in underwater space-training exercises to simulate the weightlessness of space.
It wouldn't shock me.
How bizarre.
It's nice to see that the Chinese have their own space conspiracy theorists to go with our lunar landing deniers and face on Mars hoaxers. Good to know that nuttiness transcends national boundaries.
It looked real enough to me.
I am currently running Ubuntu with Compiz Fusion advanced settings enabled. With the zoom plugin I can blow up the Taikonauts helmet to fill my whole screen. It looks like a bubble of water at around the 6 minute mark. At the beginning of the video, I thought it was just white flecks of something out-gassing from the decompression chamber. When the second Taiko-walker comes out a little later it looks like it is coming out from the back pack. At the 6 minute mark however, it most definitely looks like a bubble of something transparent that rises out of the equipment strapped to the Taikonauts chest.
However, there are things that look a lot like a space environment going on. The tethers on the safety harnesses flop around erratically. And the Chinese flag is doing the same thing it did on Apollo videos with the American flag. It wouldn't do that in water.
I think it is the liquid cooling and vent garment system in the Taikonaut's suit which has sprung a leak.
Good gosh, sure looks purty darn' tootin' authentic to me!
I looked at the YouTube video linked in the article, and it looks authentic. The tethers and such are moving way too fast for them to be in the water.
I'm sorry, Rand, but this crosses the line.
What crosses what line?
It wouldn't shock me either if the video were fake. The Chinese culture places a much higher value on "face" than on authenticity. But even if the EVA video was fake, I'd still bet there was an EVA.
It's a strange mindset, but I can really see them deciding to do an EVA for real (because they want the engineering practice, the political prestige and to be seen as a space-fairing power) and also do the video ahead of time to make sure it could be choreographed and pretty looking. In their mind the whole prestige benefit of the EVA could be thwarted if someone flopped around in the cabin in a silly manner or farted into a microphone. It's the same mindset that switched out the little girl's face at the Olympics.
Note that I have not looked at the video or have an opinion worth listening to if I did. I am merely opining on the mental makeup of the Chinese.
why?
China owns $508 billion of the US public debt that's enough money to fund four ESAS plans
I saw more things in it that looked very real than seeing anything that could be faked. Lots of items propelled away at high speed. I think Josh is right, something was either leaking or intentionally propelled, because it was moving very fast. Much faster than air bubbles rising in water.
Add to that, the mirrors reflected properly. The earth rotated properly, and 8 minutes is about the time I would expect the vehicle to go coast to coast across China. If that is faked, we I'm more impressed than I would be if it is real. It wouldn't shock me if they attempted to fake this, but at the same time, it would shock me if this video was indeed faked.
I wonder what they pressurize their suits at. He seemed to have pretty good movement. Again, his movement seemed far better than he would have with water resistance on top of a pressurized suit.
There's also the matter of two views of the spacewalk. And the high visibility of the entire vehicle. Seems a very difficult shot. Water isn't that clear though I suppose someone could have editted it.
It doesn't matter whether their "second" spacewalk is faked or not since their "first" spacewalk admittedly took place in a Xinhua newsroom by "technical error".
The Chinese are irrelevant because they did such a good job of attaining zero credibility.
If they wanted to fake the video, it would be way cheaper to do it with CGI than muck about underwater.
What Brock said. Recall the fake news story released before the launch.