The Iranian Defense Ministry launched a monkey into space and said that the launch coincided “with the days of” the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday, the 34th anniversary of the overthrow of the Shah and the Bat Mitzvah of their scientist’s daughter.
The statement also said the launch was “another giant step” in space technology and biological research “which is the monopoly of a few countries who shall remain nameless except you wouldn’t be wrong if you called one of them ‘The great satan”. As proof of their ‘great achievement’ a senior Iranian space official produced pictures of what looked like hundreds of workers drawing back a giant rubber band and, after counting to three in Farsi, letting it fly.
The small grey monkey was pictured strapped into a padded seat and being loaded into the Kavoshgar rocket dubbed “Pishgam” (‘Screw the west’). Animal science experts who have mastered the art of reading monkey lips could make out the words “Please no!” screeched over and over again as they strapped him in.
The ‘biological research’ aspect of the flight included data on how much the monkey ‘soiled’ it’s space suit.
Sources outside the country pointed to two dissimilar pictures of ‘The monkey’ as proof that they either screwed up the pictures or substituted another monkey for one who didn’t survive the 120 kilometer flight. If it was the same monkey, “It must have been one hell of a flight, at least equal to a ‘puddle jumper’ on The Soviet airline Aeroflot during the stormy season” said a spokesperson for the website Snopes.
The IDM re-iterated that it really was the same monkey and simply that its hair turned grey and the monkey grew a large mole over its eye during the flight. When reached for comment, the monkey stated “I thought they were sending me to Israel because the rocket was going right to left. That’s all I know. The rest was hazy”.
“The launch of Kavoshgar and its retrieval is the first step towards sending dissidents into space as a way of clearing out some jail space for those who don’t believe the story”.
