{"id":34727,"date":"2013-09-16T19:18:50","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T15:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=34727"},"modified":"2013-09-16T19:18:50","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T15:18:50","slug":"iran-mulls-persian-cat-as-next-animal-astronaut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=34727","title":{"rendered":"Iran Mulls Persian Cat as Next Animal Astronaut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/persianwhite_01.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-34725\" alt=\"persianwhite_01\" src=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/persianwhite_01.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/persianwhite_01.jpg 400w, https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/persianwhite_01-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/persianwhite_01-397x300.jpg 397w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>Iran&#8217;s hunt for its next animal astronaut may turn to the distinctive and locally named Persian cat, an official said Monday, in another possible step by the country&#8217;s ambitious aerospace program that has also raised Western concerns about spillover military applications.<\/p>\n<p>The report by the official IRNA news agency comes seven months after Iran claimed it launched a monkey out of earth&#8217;s atmosphere and successfully returned it home. The account, however, faced international questions after photos appeared to show different monkeys in pre- and post-launch images.<\/p>\n<p>A senior space program official, Mohammad Ebrahimi, said Iran&#8217;s next space capsule could carry the Persian cat, a long-haired, flat-faced breed named after Iran&#8217;s former name of Persia. He said the launch will happen by the end of Iran&#8217;s current year, which ends March 21. The report said a mouse and rabbit also are under consideration.<\/p>\n<p>Iran says it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation, improve telecommunications and expand military surveillance in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wanted to be Iran&#8217;s first astronaut.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran&#8217;s hunt for its next animal astronaut may turn to the distinctive and locally named&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":34725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[224,140,137],"tags":[739],"class_list":["post-34727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-region","category-world","tag-iran","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}