Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced today that he wants to be the first Iranian astronaut to travel into space. According to the AP, Ahmadinejad told members of the country's space program, "I'm ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country's scientists." If only a few nuclear scientists hadn't already beaten him to that honor.
Last week, Iran claimed to have shot a monkey, "Pishgam," ("Pioneer," in Farsi) into space. Pishgam supposedly traveled 72 miles into the atmosphere then made a safe return, but the frightened monkey that appeared to be strapped into a car-seat like apparatus looked different from the one who showed up for the media in a silk tuxedo after supposedly landing safely.
“It looks like a very different monkey, the nose, the features, everything is different,” Yariv Bash, the CEO of a private, non-profit Israeli space program told the Telegraph. “This means that either the original monkey died from a heart attack after the rocket landed or that the experiment didn’t go that well." Of course, none of that takes away from the amazing night Pishgam had at the Space Monkey Gala, nor does it diminish the secret that Sprinkles must carry to his grave.
Iranian officials admitted that there were actually two monkeys photographed, and said that one of them was just one of the five who trained for the flight, but refused to present both monkeys in the same place for an AP reporter, and what monkey? Here, drink some champagne—you're at the Space Monkey Gala!
Officials say state-sponsored manned space flight (the first Iranian space was a woman who paid $20 million to a private firm) could happen in five or six years. Iran claims it wants to use its space program to launch satellites into orbit to better monitor natural disasters like earthquakes, expand their military surveillance in the Middle East, improve their telecommunications, and build an Ivy-League university on the Moon where Ahmadinejad can give antisemitic, homophobic speeches.
