Iran may launch a flat-faced Persian cat into space, earlier this year they supposedly sent a monkey into the heavens, but is any of it real?
Mohammad Ebrahimi, a senior space program official, said the cat will be sent to space at the end of Iran's year, which comes to a close March 21, the Telegraph reported. The mission could carry a rabbit or mouse instead.
PETA did not hesitate to release a statement about the prospective endeavor.
"Anyone who has ever shared a home with a cat knows that cats are complex individuals with personalities who experience pain, fear and love in the same ways that we do," PETA stated, the Huffington Post reported.
"Iran's archaic experiment, seemingly straight from the playbook of Wile E Coyote, is a throwback to the primitive techniques of the 1950s," they said.
Iran has been accused of staging fake space missions.
The country's space station said it sent a small primate into space and then brought him back without a problem.
Photos of the mission have been said to show a different monkey being presented to an audience than what was seen in the space shuttle, suggesting the little guy never came back.
Iran's supposed new stealth fighter has also been accused of being a "laughable fake," the Huffington Post reported.
A photo of the craft appears to be photoshopped to look as if it is surfing above the clouds.
"If this is Iran's idea of 'progress', we should expect to see the rocket tunnelling into the Earth rather than leaving it for space," PETA said in response to the alleged cat-launch.
Back in 2010 Iran claimed to have also launched "a mouse, a turtle and some worms," into space in hoped of getting humans up there by the year 2018, the Telegraph reported.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently expressed his desire to be the country's first man in space.
The cat launch will be executed with "a larger, liquid-fuelled rocket. Past launches were done with solid-fuelled boosters whose technology can also be used in long-range missiles," the Telegraph reported.
