Iran develops working ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Monkey
Simian shoots off to heaven … and back again Iran’s first monkey
astronaut successfully completed its debut mission into space on
Monday in what the Islamic republic said is a prelude to manned
expeditions within the next few years. The courageous simian
travelled in a bio-capsule aboard the Pishgam (Pioneer) explorer
rocket and orbited the planet at an altitude of 120km before
returning safely to Earth, according to the government-
affiliated Fars  news agency. Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad wants to send humans into space by 2019 and the
republic has been ramping up its human space flight efforts in
recent years. It fired its first satellite, Omid, into the
heavens in 2009 and a year later launched a capsule carried by
the Kavoshgar-3 rocket containing a rat, turtles and worms, said
Fars. Experts have raised concerns that the flight, and Iran’s
space programme in general, is being used as a cover to develop
long-range missile technology whi