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Iran Forced To Cancel Its Space Program
MarkWhittington writes The War is Boring blog reported that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been obliged to cancel its nascent space program. This development means that former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's dream of being the first astronaut to be launched into space by Iran have been dashed. Ironically, Anousheh Ansari, who was obliged to flee to the United States from Iran to avoid religious oppression, remains the only Iranian-born space traveler. She did it by going to Texas, making her fortune in the electronics business, and paying for her trip to the International Space Station.
Couldn't put that in the abstract, could you.
Whatever you think of their politics, I'm sorry to see them leave the club, even if it's only temporarily. Spaceflight is one of the few remaining areas of "friendly rivalry" where everybody still cheers for the other teams' success, even as we hope to best them. Nobody ever watches a launch and thinks "I hope it explodes! I hope it explodes!" No... you always think "Go, baby, go!"
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
I don't see it in the article.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
In space you can't hear a jihadist scream...
The Examiner also could not resist throwing in jabs at Iran's nuclear power program.
It is always sad when anyone leaves the space industry, no matter where they are from, what they believe or have done at any point in history.
We need more people in the industry, especially private.
FTA "but had to become an American to realize her full potential."
Where others might say "had to leave Iran to realize her full potential" ...
I'm sure the USA will be more than happy to help Ahmadinejad realize his space launch dreams.
We're too creative to just dump terrorists from helicopter into the sea, we can also launch them into the Sun!.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I think "I hope it explodes! I hope it explodes!" when it's a country like Iran. If they can figure out space travel, they can figure out how to nuke us from space.
Now, if an immigrant from a 3rd-world country — coming here with little English and knowledge of culture, can do it, what is the excuse of the natively born-and-raised Americans?
Whom can they blame for being unable to afford whatever they want by age of 40?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Why does the poster think that Anousheh Ansari had to leave Iran due to religious oppression? Apparently she is Muslim [Wikipedia], didn't leave until 1984, and her personal website doesn't mention fleeing or religion at all.
Considering that USA/Israel intentionally infected Iran's nuclear sites with the Stuxnet virus in an attempt to damage/destroy it, would it really be wise for someone to climb on board one of their spacecraft and trust that the systems hadn't been tampered with in some way?
With all of the Islamophobia that the mainstream media has been spewing out lately, I think it that the possibility of there being an 'incident' is very likely.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
People say they want X, Y or Z. But it isn't what people "say they want" (you can say anything) but are they pursuing it?
It is how you spend your time and what you pursue. If you have a stated goal and aren't pursuing it it isn't a "want", it is a "wish".
People that want something often end up getting it. The metric of whether someone wants something is if they are doing something about it.
Most people "wish" for things and sit on the sidelines.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Wouldn't it be best to reduce oil consumption quickly by replacing SUVs with fuel efficient cars. City cars with busses, mass transit, and electric cars, and long distance freight transportation from trucks to trains, which could ultimatively run on electricity too.
In addition we could sell the tech to the Chinese. Of course this will only work with renewable energy sources.
We should all follow Iran's example and bury our useless space programs. Do you hear me, Space Nutters? Space is dead, finished, over. Nobody is going anywhere. Ever! As soon as I get out of this prison in Thailand I'm going to Iran. Surely a country that developed will not have primitive laws against jerking off to child porn in public.
Ah! He got me, he got me! Please, please, do not report my thought-crime to the authorities — I'll do anything!..
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"what is the excuse of the natively born-and-raised Americans?"
Money? I don't know specifically what finances she had but she definitely married into money. Don't get me wrong, she's definitely smart, talented, driven and maybe a bit lucky but the reason she was able to "hit it big" is that she had the resources (her husband and brother in laws money) to make it happen in addition to the skills needed to know what to do. Even if a person has an IQ of 130 they are going to have a hard time being successful if they don't have the education ($20k plus) and investment capital ($50k to millions) to go from concept to production.
Iran's real purpose here never was spaceflight.
It was improving their ballistic missiles. Making them more accurate, have longer ranges, etc. So they could drop payloads on Israel, Europe, or even America.
Launching satellites, animals, or even astronauts into space is a great coverup for ballistic missile research.
Even the New York Times, not exactly a hotbed of right-wing reactionary fervor, noted that Iran's space program was basically a sham:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/world/middleeast/launching-site-in-iran-raises-missile-worries.html
But with Iran's economy already hurting from sanctions, and now probably in free fall from the oil price implosion, this dream of theirs is not currently affordable.
GOOD.
The blog from the summary cites no sources. Hell, they don't even hint at where they get their information. The other link to a story is a rehash of the blog post. The others are unrelated to the main story.
And in case you're wondering, the blog post doesn't say why they quit or what does "quitting" mean. One can assume from the text (though it doesn't actually say it) that the main space agency was disbanded by the government, but that's all. Why? Who knows!
This is some high-quality journalism here.
Apparently they've had issues sourcing large cardboard boxes.
From http://www.bbc.com/news/busine...
"Saudi Arabia can cope with low oil prices for "at least eight years", Saudi Arabia's minister of petroleum's former senior adviser has told the BBC. Mohammed al-Sabban said the country's policy was to defend its current market share by enduring low prices. "You need to allow prices to go as low as possible in order to see those marginal producers move out of the market," he said."
Eight happy years!
http://www.theweek.co.uk/busin...
"The dramatic fall in the oil price will spur the UK economy to grow faster than had been predicted this year, according to influential forecaster the EY ITEM Club."
Yo-hoo
Is that they're great to simultaneously develop accurate ICBMs.
Iran no longer having a space program means that its neighbors in the region don't have to worry about missiles being developed under such a banner, at least; anything they develop will be made for military use. Also possibly badly photoshopped.
Isn't that the basic premise for virtually every space program on the planet (US, USSR, India, UK, etc). I think pretty much every one of them started out or were HEAVILY involved with military applications. Many suggest that the major reason why solid rocket boosters were/are used on the Shuttle/SLS is to help prop up a defense rocket motor maker in peacetime.
A more ominous purpose existed for the Iranian space program existed, however. Iran, which is in the process of making a nuclear bomb, needs a way to deliver such a weapon.
LOL!
Let's not ask the real purpose of the embargo on Cuba, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the occupation of Iraq, unlimited spending on multi-role super-computer war-planes. Let's bitch about a backward country instead.
I understand the need to stop your enemy developing into a technologically forward country but the USA doesn't interfere with other enemy countries the way it wages war on Iran.
USA good; Iran bad. Just ask the USA.
Sorry, posting to remove mistaken moderation.
Oh no we ran out of bottle rockets!
...was obliged to use a concise term of action instead of the oddly constructed term of obligation "has been obliged."
Iran canceled its space program; Ansari fled to the US. That wasn't so hard!
I, on the other hand, have erstwhile been obliged to undertake in grammatical pedantry.
Nothing posted to
They let it run a little too long this time, though. Hybrids and electrics have had a chance to get a foothold in the market, and some people are already starting to think about how pure electric vehicles and ones with fuel cells could potentially change how electric grids work. It wouldn't take a very big push for countries to start adopting electric vehicles powered with Clean Atomic Energy. And that'll plunge us into the next ice age lickety split, once global warming starts to reverse. Hah, didn't see THAT coming, did you?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'm sure there's a large group of Iranian counter-revolutionists (those that want to return Iran to its former pre-1979 glory) contemplating a Kickstarter; to set aside their differences and come up with the money to send former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in low Earth orbit and realize his dream. I'm not so sure they will reach the stretch-goal of providing him with a re-entry vehicle, though...
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
I don't think they can just wait out the shutdown of the low-margin producers, then bump the prices back up. Or at least, they can't bump them back up very far, because the technology used by the low-margin producers will not be lost. It will likely get a little bit better. So they'll have to keep the price low enough that the low-margin producers can't re-enter the market.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
[quote]Ironically, Anousheh Ansari, who was obliged to flee to the United States from Iran to avoid religious oppression[/quote]
I could not find this information from any web source other than this article. Why would that be?
None of it has ever made sense to me, so I have spent time researching the history to try to understand why we were able to do it then, and why it has been so hard since Apollo to make progress.
[snip]
The U.S. has always had two space programs, the first being the one that the politicians wanted, and the one that was sold to the American people.
posting AC because I modded up some good comments by others.
After all, a successful space program is also a successful ICBM program...
I am sure Greenpeace will use Global Cooling if Warming no longer works.
Whatever suits their paymasters.
...you have been nicely indoctrinated and inflamed by the mainstream media. NY Times certainly will demonize Iran, as that is the mainstream agenda. They say not much about the REAL bastards (the saudis), so that fools like you can, well, be fooled.