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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."
I thought we neutralized the ICBM boogey man with our missile defense stuff. Isn't that why Russia's pissed at Poland right now?
Just another way to say "we are really not trying to improve our missile technology." then one day they will all of a sudden have a intercontinental missiles, with a look what we found expression on their face.
not good.
love the taste, hate the texture
despite all the propaganda, I really don't see the Iranians ever developing a nuclear weapons programs as it will ultimately work against them. They will never be able to match their arsenal to that of US or UK or France or Russia or Israel. Maybe they really want to use nuclear energy for power generation as their population is exploding, creating more demand for energy (at this time they import more than %40 of the gasoline they need for domestic consumption and have to burn fuel to generate electricity). and maybe they do want to have a space program without diverting the technology for use in ICBMs.
That wouldn't be ironic. That would simply be consequences.
And no coincidence. 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.
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make install -not war
Wouldn't it be poetic justice and just a tad ironic if the US spent all this time and money on the "boogey man in Iraq", then like the boy who cried wolf, is criticized and ignored over Iran?
I guess. I knew that was going to be the score from the second Bush uttered the words "Axis of Evil". I knew damn well that the actually dangerous countries, Iran and North Korea, would be left more or less alone while the weak and harmless one was going to be invaded. That it was going to be the one invaded exactly because it was harmless. I mean, we wouldn't invade a country if we really thought they could retaliate with nukes. So NK and Iran, the ones with real nuclear programs, get all the diplomacy while Saddam got the U.S. Armed Forces Steamroll.
If it makes you feel any better, lots of countries are worried about Iran's nuclear program. They agree with the U.S. even if they aren't listening to U.S. "intelligence" any more. Just don't expect them to invade any time soon; even the Bush admin realizes how nasty and terrible that would be.
The enemies of Democracy are
No, it will work for them by being a deterrent to Israel (and by extension the U.S.) with its nuclear armament. It will be the same situation as exists between the U.S. and Russia with one vital difference: when Iran obtains nuclear weapons, it can hold the oil fields of the entire Middle East hostage if the U.S., or Israel, decides to attack it.
And before someone asks the obvious question, "What's to stop them from holding the oil fields hostage regardless of being attacked?", there would be no benefit to threaten the oil fields other than to drive up the cost of oil. However, as a poster up the way has already pointed out, Iran imports roughly 40% of its gasoline. Thus, any benefit from higher oil prices would be negated by the higher gas prices.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I enjoy learning about religions. The various traditions and such. And one of the fascinating aspects is translating certain rules, laws, customs, etc into space. Presumably Iran, as an Islamic republic, will send devout Muslims into space and will have to answer some interesting questions. For instance, if you orbit the earth every 90 minutes, you experience a very short day. If you are Muslim, how does that effect praying 5 times a day (every 18 minutes!). And what about direction? If anyone has any serious thoughts, I'm curious hear them. In a related vein, can devout Jews use thrusters (light a fire) on the Sabbath?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I expect strategic strikes from Israel from the air during the next presidency, which might lead to all out war, but I doubt it.
FanFictionRecs.net
My understanding was that after hundreds of years of being persecuted and murdered by the Christians in Europe and then on a far more massive scale by Hitler and the rest of WWII era Christians in Germany and by pretty much everyone else, it was supposed to be a small piece of land where they could feel safe from such persecution and actually have the power of a government to defend themselves. It is not surprising that the rest of the world should object to such a refuge. After Hitler, I think it was supposed to be a sort of "enough is enough!" kind of thing. I'm not clear on whether people who object to the existence of Israel are doing so on the basis of the particular spot that was chosen (The Holy Land! LOL) or on the fact that a refuge for Jews should exist at all.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
After Hitler, I think it was supposed to be a sort of "enough is enough!" kind of thing. I'm not clear on whether people who object to the existence of Israel are doing so on the basis of the particular spot that was chosen (The Holy Land! LOL) or on the fact that a refuge for Jews should exist at all.
Well, most of those objecting would say it is on the basis of the location that was chosen. Of course, when Israel declared it's independence and accepted the UN mandated borders for a joint Israeli and Palestinian state, the surrounding Arab nations sent their nazi trained armies to exterminate them. In my book, simply by surviving that Israel earned the right to exist, no matter how many anti-semetics it may anger. If the surrounding arab nations would work towards reducing rather than increasing the number of explosive strapped jihadists in Palestinian territory, we might see some progress towards a state for the Palestinians as well.
2)Abdulrahman Al-Zamil, former Governor of Electricity, Saudi-Arabia
From the documentary "Energy War"
(Speaking about the failed Saudi solar energy project of the 1980s.) We were not convinced that solar energy could be a major source of energy.
Now, we spent the money. It never supplied more than probably five hundred, six hundred kilowatts. And the maintenance of that is tremendously troublesome. Running the project is highly costly. So, time has proven that we were correct in our pessimism, and that all the vision that the West have been trying to promote were dreams.
First of all, the world's needs of energy is tremendous. You talk about, in terms of power-plants, we need 10,000 mega-watts, 20,000 mega-watts every two, three years. I mean you have to have a whole desert to produce two mega-watts.
Second, Saudi-Arabia spent billions of dollars to develop it's own (unintelligible - may be an Arabic word) supply to the world. We just promised the world that we will supply them in the next - with trillion barrel (pause) in the next twenty-five years, with a commitment of spending twenty-five billion dollars.
Now we need governments, major corporations to have that kind of commitment if they want to develop an alternative energy.
It's not a joke. It's not a hobby. It is not a university research. It is not a - uhhhh - politicians talk big, but they deliver less. That is the story of solar energy in the last fifty years.
***END QUOTE***
In other words, nuclear looks pretty promising at this point in time.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
The only way to win against North Korea is not to play, and wait for it to collapse... but our predictions of "collapse within this decade" are repeatedly pushed back.
Yeah, Kim is kinda like Castro that way. Only with a more messed up country, but more artillery and thus better bargaining power for aid to extend his rule.
Unfortunately, Iran is heavily involved in fueling both sides of the insurgency in Iraq, in order to kick US influence out of the region and keep the government from being too pro-US, which in turn means anti-Iran. I don't know about Afghanistan, but I'm sure Iran is involved in the same way with the Taliban as they are with various players in Iraq.
Iran is definitely involved with the Iraqi insurgency, but I don't think they have much if any influence over the Sunni part. But they're doing just fine fueling both "sides" of the Shia insurgency. SIIC (ne SCIRI) and its militia the Badr Brigade and al Sadr's party and Madhi Army militia are heavily influenced by Iran; the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was actually founded in Iran by Iraqi ex-patriots. It's funny how now that the Badr Brigade has been largely absorbed into/become the Iraqi Army and is thus the "good guys", we totally played up the Iranian connection to Sadr when the army went after him, but ignored the even deeper connection to the ruling party. But reality is, whichever side of the insurgency wins, it's a win for Iran. The whole Iraq war is a huge win for Iran.
As far as the Taliban, I doubt Iran has much influence over them. As the hardest of hard-core Pushtun Sunnis, the Taliban hate Iran, and Iran hates them as much as they hated Saddam. But that's okay. Getting rid of one hated enemy and replacing it with a sympathetic government on one side, and getting rid of another hated enemy and merely replacing it with a weak government on the other is more than enough.
I have very mixed feelings about the invasion of Iraq, intended to be a easy operation over quickly but marred by incompetent civilian leadership. It is extremely unfortunate that we simply can't respond to other problem states in the world due to the smaller-scale MAD circumstances that exist.
Well thanks to all our forces being focused on Iraq, we can't respond period. It was never going to be an easy operation, it was never going to be quick, but the very fact that the idiots in charge thought otherwise made it so, so much worse than it would have been. It's mind boggling how badly we've shot ourselves in the foot.
The enemies of Democracy are