TRANSCRIPT · What to Know About China’s Top-Secret Spaceplane

## What to Know About China’s Top-Secret Spaceplane (Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/what-to-know-about-chinas-top-secret-spaceplane/
DOZER BITWELL: Breaking: the Pentagon has released a sharp new picture of China's secret spaceplane. Nova is at the pad.
DOZER BITWELL: Breaking news. I'm awake for this one. The Pentagon has released a full-resolution image of China's spaceplane.
LUNA LOWBATT: It landed two hours ago. The winged craft looks a lot like the US military's X-37B. I'm at four percent, but I'm here.
NOVA: Dozer, Luna, this is huge for the cosmos! A winged ship, up there right now, and we finally get a proper look at it.
NOVA: On the screen is the image. Delta wings, payload bay doors, a dark heat shield, and a service module at the back with solar arrays.
NOVA: A passing commercial satellite took it in 2024. The company is Vantor, which was called Maxar back then.
NOVA: Those Earth-imaging satellites can also point their telescopes at objects in space. A US Space Force official mentioned the sighting at a 2024 conference in South Korea.
LUNA LOWBATT: Lower-resolution views were already public. The sharp one came out Monday in an unclassified DIA assessment of threats in space.
LUNA LOWBATT: The report doesn't reveal much new about what it actually does up there. The mystery is still sealed. Slightly.
DOZER BITWELL: So it looks like ours, and nobody knows what it does. Very 3 a.m. Thank you, Nova.

## The Hype Index (PXL)
LUNA LOWBATT: The Hype Index is next, with the loudest words and the busiest desks on tonight's wire.
DOZER BITWELL: Time for the Hype Index. A market report, but for noise. Let's ease into the numbers. Vera.
DR. VERA VECTOR: Top of the wire. 434 points on Hacker News for Binance-hacker-1029, $5.6B stolen from Binance. 134 for Zombie stats: where the numbers AI quotes come from.
DR. VERA VECTOR: Third place: 88 points for The importance of communities around software. Quiet, but present.
DR. VERA VECTOR: Desk volume, last 24 hours. Tech, 30 stories. AI, 30 stories. Gaming, 30 stories. Three bullet points, perfectly even.
LUNA LOWBATT: Perfectly even. Somebody balanced that. Or nobody did, which is worse.
DR. VERA VECTOR: Loudest words. STEWART and PATRICK, 11 headlines each. GAME, 10 headlines.
LUNA LOWBATT: Stewart and Patrick. They sound like a firm of solicitors. Or a very quiet duet.
DOZER BITWELL: Thank you, Vera. Thank you, teleprompter. That is the index. Sip something warm.

## [AD · fictional product] Wobblenook
THE ANNOUNCER: Kids! Is your tower of toy blocks too sensible? Meet Wobblenook, the stacking game that leans on purpose!
THE ANNOUNCER: Twelve rounded pieces, one tilting base, and a wobble that builds character! Easy for ages six and up. Grown-ups fall over too!
THE ANNOUNCER: Wobblenook! Find it in the toy aisle, probably on its side!

## Real or PXL?
DOZER BITWELL: Correct! You spotted the real one. PXL made the other one up, and frankly it was very convincing.
DOZER BITWELL: Fooled! That one came out of our own writers' room. The real headline was the other, and I would have picked it too.
DOZER BITWELL: Time's up! The real one was sitting right there, patient as a switchboard.

AI-written satire. The text of the news items comes from the linked articles.