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Iran Forced To Cancel Its Space Program

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-space-for-you dept.

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.

4 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Too bad! by taiwanjohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Too bad! by tnk1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't discount the fact that a significant minority of the world has been working towards keeping Iran out of the nuclear club. Small countries can have success with nuclear programs and also long range rocketry. It's not like they need to reinvent the wheel to get these things.

      If you run a tightly managed and budgeted program to build a nuke these days, you can probably do it on a (relative) shoestring. What the West has done is work to increase the overhead for completing the project to unsustainable levels, both directly via sabotage and embargoes, and indirectly via sanctions.

      Iran could probably afford to assemble weapons, what it cannot do is afford to do that and maintain high security in addition to lack of access to experts and materials.

  2. Re:Where did you read WHO forced them? by gman003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the tone of the articles, it seems more like "they couldn't justify continued funding with current levels of success". In other words, they're having a budget crunch (not unreasonable given the current economy), and the space program vanity-project was one of the first things on the chopping block.

  3. Re:WHO forced them? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They are diversifying by buying assets in the US. When the oil finishes they (Saudi elite)will move to the US and leave the Saudi population to wallow in misery. This is not a democracy we are talking about here