Slashdot Mirror
Iran Announces Manned Space Mission Plans
Lucas123 writes "After Iran's first attempt to launch a satellite on Sunday fell noticeably short of the Earth's atmosphere (though Iran claimed it made it into orbit), government officials stated they intend to put a man into space within 10 years. The long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into space can also be used for launching weapons. Iran says it has no intention to use the technology for launching nuclear warheads."
Single page link.
Greasemonkey script to do that automatically.
Worse, there's a case that can be made that it's Napoleonic crossed with some sort of Messiah complex. Some of those guys REALLY don't like everyone else, and may take the admonition in the Koran that a Muslim can lie to a non-Muslim in a time of war seriously.
Pretty simple, actually. Iran has very limited capability to refine their own oil, so they need to pay to get it to a country with more refining capability, then pay to get it back.
Incidentally, there's nothing mystical or religious about the crescent and star: it was adopted by the Turks from Asia Minor / Byzantium / Christians. It's relatively recent and has been used by many many groups and in (European) heraldry too. Somehow it is seen as some universal symbol of Islam on par with the cross for Christianity. It's nothing of the sort.
You must really be crazy to call the proven conspiracy of Bush's team members to arm Iran something worthy of a "tinfoil hat".
Especially when you yourself link Rumsfeld and Cheney with Ford. But then, you don't bother to point out that Rumsfeld and Cheney met while working together for Nixon. All of which is consistent with working with America's enemies.
You've got your tinfoil hat on backwards. It's frying your brain.
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make install -not war
The Bush dynasty has been working closely with Iran, arming it, even protecting AQ Khan (the Pakistani whose stolen nuke secrets started the Iranian, N Korean and Libyan nuke projects). That's why the "Iran" in "Iran/Contra" was always the worst part of that traitorous operation out of Oliver North's White House basement office. And why the resumes of the Bush Jr "brain trust" are full of "Iran/Contra" experience.
AQ Khan wasn't selling 'stolen' secrets, he was selling the nuclear plans he used to build Pakistan's nuclear weapons. He is a hero in Pakistan for giving them the bomb to rival India. He was also selling much more than just plans for nuclear weapons, he was selling the equipment needed to implement the plans as well.
AQ Khan didn't start the Iranian program either, he just jump started it with better technology. He also sold them the plans for machining enriched Uranium into spheres(unless of course you believe the Iranians story in which case he just gave it to them for free, without even being asked). The slashdot crowd is probably aware that weapons are the ONLY use for Uranium spheres.
Of course, it gets better. AQ Khan is such a hero in Pakistan that when Musharraf made him apologize for selling nuclear technology there was a public backlash for embarassing a national hero. AQ Khan is now on loose house arrest in Pakistan and the US/CIA have been refused access to question him.
Now here's the greatest parts:
1. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces that were chased out of Afghanistan are now based in the Northern tribal region of Pakistan, where they enjoy tremendous public support.
2. After Musharraf and the Pakistan military co-operated with the US to crack down on Islamic extremism, there is a virtual civil war going on in Pakistan. On one side is the corrupt military that controls most of the country by force. Scarily, those are the 'good' guys. The other side are the religous mullahs. They aren't the moderate muslim leaders we have over here. They are pro-bin laden jihadists who we really wouldn't like to see in control of the nuclear weapons that AQ Khan built for Pakistan. The Best part is they control the region the Taliban and Al-Qaeda retreated so completely the military is scared to go there and it would be suicide for the police to enter it.
Frankly, that all scares the willies out of me.
but ignore the real world, lets worry about the Bush Dynasty and it's heinous attempts at holding a free election in Iraq.
I know you're making a joke here, but the joke is less funny the more you know about Iran. Iran and Iraq differ by a lot more than one consonant. For one thing, the way their government works is much more complicated than the old Baghdad Bob's Baathist regime.
First of all, charming Mr. Ahmadinejad, although he is quite capable of saying some pretty outrageous things, doesn't wield supreme power, or even anything close to it. The Supreme Leader, Ali Khameni, is much more powerful. But even his power is arguably the ultimate one, it is by design much more awkward for him to wield than, say, Saddam's version of ultimate power.
There are even relative moderates in the government like Akbar Rafsanjani, former president and current chairman of both the Expendiency Council and Assembly of Experts. The Assembly theoretically has the power to dismiss the Supreme Leader, although no actions in that direction have ever, so far as we know, been taken.
The point here is that the Iranian government isn't even close to being the kind of dictatorship where everybody has to parrot the President's fantasies. To tell you the truth, it isn't quite like any other form of government I can think of, it's more like a hybrid of a democratic Republic and a theocracy, with the theocracy acting primarily in a judicial role but with certain executive powers theoretically in their direct or indirect control. Ack, that's a really bad summary, but the best I can do.
The important thing that everybody should understand about Iran is that the Iranian government is not anything monolithic entity driven by the ego or ideology of any single person, not even the Supreme Leader.
The way we deal with such a country isn't quite the same as you would deal with a dictatorship. Perhaps one might approach Iran in the way we dealt with the old totalitarian states, although Iran isn't really very much like them. There is a power structure there which, through its various organs, might be dealt with pragmatically. Such dealings might even, in some cases, tip the balance of power between factions.
The Iranians take seriously the idea of being an "Islamic Republic". It seems almost incomprehensible to the Western mind that this could be anything but a sham, but it's not. There's a thousand years of Shiite historical and religious thought which limits the ability of even senior religious leaders to wield absolute power.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I believe parent was talking about the prime minister, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, who was overthrown by the CIA and MI6 in 1953. I suggest you google "Operation Ajax".
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
But at some point the Islamic side will wake up and see just how godless the Chinese can be, and the Chinese will wake up and see just how unsensibly non-pragmatic the Islamic fundamentalists can be, and things will become "interesting", in the Confucian sense.
It isn't reported much, but there ARE Islamic bombings in China already...
Their rocket development program is almost that elementary compared to their stated goals.
The Safir rocket is an adaptation of their Shahab-3 missile. This is a medium range ballistic missile and one of several they claimed to have test-launched en masse last month, giving Stephen Colbert an easy 10 minutes of fill material after it was found out the photos of the launch were doctored. It seems their Shahab inventory, at least flight-ready Shahab's, is not as large as they want outsiders to believe.
The Shahab itself is based on the North Korean Nodong missile, which in turn was developed from second-hand Scud missiles acquired from Egypt. Going back even further, the Scud originated in the 50's in the Soviet Union as a scaled down, improved version of the German V-2. Whew! Talk about a long lineage.
For the launch vehicle derivative, it apparently has been fitted with a different second stage, possibly derived from Soviet SA-2 surface to air missiles, and probably a small third stage with a payload fairing for the orbital version. Payload would likely be very small...the Shahab-3 only carries a 1 ton warhead on a sub-orbital trajectory. The launch weight is less than SpaceX's Falcon-1, which has a 700kg LEO capability and presumably a higher-performance engine.
Despite not having a large technical infrastructure, Iran is not entirely devoid of reasonably competent engineers. Given enough resolve and a couple more tries, they will probably succeed. It at least appears theoretically possible for that rocket to reach orbit.
However, that is still a very, very long ways from putting a man in space, even counting on existing technologies. Such a rocket will not scale well at all, meaning they will need to develop something completely new from the ground up...because North Korea isn't going to be able to supply them with a Soyuz to copy. China, for example, launched their first satellite in 1970, but it wasn't 2003 that they actually put a person in orbit. That was after drawing on Soviet experience and 3-4 generations of their own ballistic mis...err, I mean expendable launch vehicles.
Like many of their past claims, there's little reason to expect Iran to be able to follow through on the man in space claim for the foreseeable future.