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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.

9 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. WHO forced them? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Couldn't put that in the abstract, could you.

    1. Re:WHO forced them? by demachina · · Score: 4, Interesting

      More probably plunging oil prices have wiped out the Iranian governments revenue stream. There is speculation that one of the reasons Saudi Arabia is continuing to pump oil and crater oil prices is to cripple Iran, a bitter Shia enemy, and defund programs like uranium enrichment, missile development, their miliary in general and their support for other anti Sunni groups in the Middle East.

      The other speculations for continued Saudi efforts to crash oil prices are to wipe out frackers in the U.S. so they can regain more political control over the U.S., to wipe out expensive offshore and artic oil exploration, to punish Russia at the behest of the U.S. or because Russia is a key benefactor of Iran.

      --
      @de_machina
    2. Re:WHO forced them? by HornWumpus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      How about 'all of the above.'

      The Saudis have a stated policy of pumping the oil while it is still valuable. They expect technology to make oil obsolete in 100 years or so. Even plastic feed stock can come from plants. That said; I'm not sure I believe them.

      They also claim to have about 200 years worth of oil and the lowest costs in the world. If all that is true, then they should pump like mad. The market will find a new equilibrium, if some nations can't turn a profit at that price, that is not the Saudi's problem. Everybody involved understands sunk costs though.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    3. Re:WHO forced them? by TWX · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And the fact that $100/barrel oil and $4.00/gallon gasoline means that consumers have a strong incentive to look at alternate forms of energy. Houses get built that don't use "home heating oil" for their furnaces, cars that are increasingly fuel efficient become more popular, and some car buyers actually look at their driving patterns to see if electrics can meet their needs.

      If oil remains expensive for the long-term, oil finds its customer base slowly evaporating, until a tipping-point is reached where economies of scale suddenly make the new stuff even more practical, and as that happens, politicians start seeing an opportunity to restrict the manufacture of new products that operate the old way, and then the oil market shrinks even further.

      I'm not saying that internal combustion engines in cars would go away quickly as soon as extremely cheap electric cars come into production, but look at the number of cars still on the road that lack airbags, or that lack antilock brakes, or that have carburetors instead of some form of fuel injection. It takes less than fifteen years for the bulk of cars on the road to no longer have the older technology once the new one is standard, and less than 20 years for the old way to be legitimately rare. That's the danger the oil producers face with $100/barrel oil, that the car companies will start making electrics due to customer demand, and that more and more customers will like them and buy them.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  2. Re:Too bad! by taiwanjohn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ahmedinijad is out of power and the tales of Iran's nuclear program (from what I can see) appear to be mostly overblown propaganda. I'll grant that this is a "legitimate" issue among "experts" in diplomacy, but I'm not buying it. YMMV...

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
  3. Self-aggrandizing by kylegordon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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" ...

    1. Re:Self-aggrandizing by neilo_1701D · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

      If she left Iran and went to (say) Afghanistan, would that have have helped her realize her full potential? Doubt it. Or let's pick another country: Australia. Suppose she went there. Given the state of the Australian space program, could she have realized her full potential? Of course not; Australia can barely launch a helium balloon (I'm Australian, BTW).

      No, if her full potential was to go into space, there's only really three countries available: China, Russia and the United States. Of those three, given the choice, which would you pick? So, saying that she "...had to become an American to realize her full potential." is completely fair.

      I don't understand how you get 'Self-aggrandizing' out of this.

  4. Ballistic missile deception no longer affordable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. Saudi copes with low prices for at least 8 yrs by amplesand · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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