An Iranian minister has had to apologise for trying to pass off a Hallowe’en costume as the country’s official space suit for future astronauts.
Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, the minister for information, tweeted a picture of the space suit alongside the national flag before the launch on Sunday of Iran’s Zafar 1 satellite. “Astronaut suit, bright future,” he wrote.
As it happened, Zafar — or victory — crashed in a rural part of southeastern Iran. That embarrassment was dwarfed by the scorn poured on Mr Jahromi online after the suit was examined. Shadows on the breast area, suggesting that something had been removed, matched imitation Nasa patches on a children’s Hallowe’en outfit on sale from Amazon for $20.
The Iranian flag seemed to have