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Scholarship and education
Trust us, we're from the space administrationPosted by Joel Martinsen, December 7, 2007 1:27 PM
![]() Ouyang Ziyuan An article in the Southern Metropolis Daily rounds up the latest developments in the controversy over the Chang'e lunar photo. Recapping the events of the past week, the article notes the speculation that the photo was copied from a NASA image, the denial by CAS's Ouyang Ziyuan, who pointed out a new crater in the Chinese photo, and the subsequent demonstration that the new crater was just an artifact of the way that the photo mosaic was stitched together to make the composite image that was released to the public. The article even incorporates the more thorough proof provided by Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society. The SMD approached Ouyang Ziyuan for his reaction to the error. All he was willing to say was that the photo was genuine; he avoided the question how the crater turned up: Southern Metropolis Daily: There has been some online controversy lately concerning the Chang'e lunar photo; people are particularly concerned with the "extra" crater that is missing on the American photo. One netizen suggested that this is the result of an error in stitching the mosaic.... The second issue: the US photos were shot in 1994 and were only verified many years later in verified 2005. Ten years! We had just three days, right? Some details in the computer stitching...because this involves many, many elements, I think that it doesn't really matter. We haven't reached the final form; what I mean is that you cannot say that this is fake, and additionally, there isn't much point to arguing over this matter. I don't think that these questions deserve messing with. Why? This is a question of real and fake, which does not permit any doubt. Would we create a fake? So many people—it's really offensive! So I want to make this clear. SMD: So you're saying that the photo that we stitched together in three days on the computer may have had some imperfections in the stitching process. But the fact that the Americans took ten years to stitch together their photo does not necessarily mean.... SMD: The problem is that on the Internet, everyone is discussing the extra crater.... SMD: Avoidance. They don't argue it. We'll only speak about the real/fake issue, but I won't talk details. To put it bluntly, you wouldn't understand. All those fussy details—if you messed with them you'd only get yourself confused. Xinhua journalist Han Song takes issue with Ouyang Ziyuan's casual dismissal of the public's concerns in a blog post titled, "Ouyang Ziyuan insults our enthusiasm for Chang'e":
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Comments on Trust us, we're from the space administration
Beautiful example of a dysfunctional government. These Chinese bureaucrats live in an artificial world where they can just pretend and pretend, and have 1.3 billion people believe their garbage.