Threat Axis

By now – everyone should be aware that the Iranian’s launched a small Sputnik type of satellite into low Earth Orbit yesterday.  But what was suprising – was the time that it took for the it to be publicized by the mainstream press.

My daily newsletter from Spaceflightnow.com – had this launch as their lead item when I got up in the morning (6am MST).

The headline about the launch from the BBC showed up a couple of hours later – in my crawl bar across the browser.

And then pulling up the rear – was CNN late in the day finally decided they had enough info to publish.  I guess CNN wanted to make sure that they were reporting a real story – and weren’t about to be had by a Photoshop’d picture – like during the Iranian’s Missile test last October (picture below);

Iranian Missile test - enhanced by Photoshop

But seriously – this is a big step for the Iranian’s.  And it even has the French concerned.  The Space Race between the US and USSR drove the accuracy and the development of the ICBM.  Today many fear that the work that has gone into this booster will show up in future Iranian long range missiles.

So let’s see – we now have a likely credible threat in the next 5-10 years of being able to hit Europe (and easily Israel), the Russian’s are still objecting to putting Ground Based Interceptor’s in Eastern Europe, and we are in the midst of a massive economic downturn.

So where is our new Secretary of State – shouldn’t she be upholding the President’s campaign promise to open a dialogue with the Iranian government?