The Iranian government has an incredible appetite for putting forward hyperbolic technological claims and has little shame about backing them up those with outright laughable proof. It's one thing to claim that a 'new' indigenously produced fighter aircraft that is at best a clone of a 50-year-old design is equivalent to America's front-line fighters or even making the erroneous proclamation that Iranian industry has reproduced an equivalent of the RQ-170 unmanned flying wing stealth drone that fell into their hands in 2011, but making it seem like Iranian scientists developed the freakin' Space Shuttle is a whole other level of bozo behavior.

This is exactly what the Iranian government, and the fanatical Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in particular, is directly implying in a huge graphic that is currently displayed in Tehran's Valiasr Square. The billboard is running in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution that saw the ousting of close American ally Mohammad Reza Shah and the installation of a hardline theocratic government under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Talk about cultural appropriation!

The timing of this display is especially laughable considering the so-called Iranian Space Agency just failed yet again at putting a satellite into low-earth orbit. The ridiculous propaganda play makes you feel sorry for average Iranians who have to live with such childish hyperbole from a government in which they have very limited ability to reform through the democratic process.

Twitter image via @Hassanvand

Above all else, the billboard shows how warped the propagandists within the regime really are. There seems to be no technological claim that is too outlandish to present to the masses. In related news, we have obtained an exclusive intelligence report that shows that Iran is now working on a much more ambitious program, one that is sure to be a major source of national pride once it heads out on its first five-year voyage. Here's a snapshot of the craft from the intelligence dossier we received through undisclosed sources:

Ship: El Carlos/wikicommons

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com