Iranian minister is mocked for ‘passing off child’s NASA fancy dress costume as regime’s astronaut suit’
- Information minister tweeted a picture of suit with words ‘astronaut costume’
- But social media instantly accused him of flaunting a child’s NASA costume
- People claimed he passed off a £20 Amazon product and tore off NASA badges
The Iranian regime has been ridiculed for appearing to pass off a NASA fancy dress costume as one of their own spacesuits.
Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, Tehran’s information and communications technology minister, last week tweeted a picture of the silver outfit with the words: ‘astronaut costume #brightfuture’.
But social media users instantly accused him of flaunting a child’s costume which can be bought on Amazon for £20, and simply tearing off the NASA badges.
Closer inspection of the costume does appear to show the faint outline where the logos have been removed.
The spacesuit tweeted by the Iranian minister (left) bares a striking resemblance to a NASA fancy dress costume which can be bought on Amazon (right). Closer inspection of the costume does appear to show the faint outline where the logos have been ripped off
They are exactly the same shape and placement of an Underwraps product sold on Amazon as ‘astronaut silver child space explorer costume’.
Other than expunging the NASA badges, the only noticeable difference is the Iranian flag sowed on to the sleeve.
It is unclear if Jahromi was trying to pass off the costume as a genuine cutting-edge spacesuit or just an Iranian fancy dress costume, but he was still scorned by Twitter uses.
One person, who tweeted the picture of the Amazon product, wrote: ‘The lack of a ‘brain in the Iranian regime has been a constant problem! Minister of Communications buys Halloween costumes and removes the NASA logo, stitches the Islamic Republic flag on it and seeks to frame it as the regime’s achievement!’
Exposed as replicating the American space agency design would be embarrassing for Iran, which is locked in a bitter cold war with the Washington.
Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, Tehran’s information and communications technology minister, last week tweeted a picture of the silver outfit with the words: ‘astronaut costume #brightfuture’
Social media users instantly accused him of flaunting a child’s costume which can be bought on Amazon for £20, and simply stitching the NASA badges
It comes after a major setback to Tehran’s space program when a rocket failed to launch a satellite into space.
The scuppered rocket launch happened yesterday at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s Semnan province, some 145 miles southeast of Tehran.
A Simorgh, or ‘Phoenix’, rocket could not put the Zafar 1 communications satellite into orbit due to a low speed, state TV reported.
Defence Ministry space program spokesman Ahmad Hosseini said: ‘Stage-1 and stage-2 motors of the carrier functioned properly and the satellite was successfully detached from its carrier, but at the end of its path it did not reach the required speed for being put in the orbit.’
Hosseini still sought to portray the failure as a ‘remarkable’ achievement for its space program.
Previous Simorgh launches of the 80-ton satellite carrier suffered other failures.