In the aftermath of Iran’s announcement that the country’s space program succeeded in launching a monkey into space last week, skeptics had come forward in their belief that the mission’s success was a hoax due to the differences in facia
l features of the monkey in photographs. The most glaring difference was that the monkey launched appeared to have a mole over its right eye. The monkey that landed did not.
Jon Stewart proposed his theories about what may have been the cause of such physical dissimilarities last night on The Daily Show.
One theory that Stewart surmised was that “the launch was a dud and Iran was covering up its failure.” This idea is plausible, as Stewart stated that Iran “can’t brag to us about shit we did 50 years ago” after showing footage of a space launch that sent live animals into space, including a mouse, a turtle, and a worm. It is not yet known who had designed a space suit for the worm.
A second theory of Stewart’s is that Iran has “secretly built the first all-primate orbital cosmetic surgery spa,” which would explain how the two photographs could very well be the same monkey.
An official active in Iran’s space program, Mohammad Ebrahimi, has since confirmed that state media coverage had used images of two different monkeys, but insists that the monkey, “Pishgam,” had survived the flight.