Minister says Pakistan sent Hubble to space, gets trolled

Islamabad, May 6 (IANS) Pakistan's Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry was mercilessly trolled by Twitterati after he claimed that the Hubble Space Telescope was sent into space by the country's aeronautics and aerospace research agency Suparco, instead of its US counterpart NASA.

Chaudhry, speaking at Geo News' programme "Naya Pakistan" on Sunday, mentioned that "the world's biggest telescope ... was sent by Suparco (Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission)".

The Minister told the talk show host that "... one of the ways to see is the Hubble Telescope, which is the world's biggest telescope and was sent (into space) by Suparco, which is installed in a satellite".

"Then there are other satellites and there are other (types of) technologies," he added.

A torrent of memes and trolling posts made its way to the Internet following Chaudhry's slip-up.

"May be NASA head will resign and also join the Ministry of @fawadchaudhry as head of Suparco," one user tweeted.

"You have really surpassed all your predecessors. Just a few days under your patronage, we realized that Suparco has sent 'hubal' telescope into space.. Incredible. Mr PM @ImranKhanPTI should send such discoverer into space as a reward..!, tweeted another user.

Ironically, Chaudhry, as Pakistan's Information Minister, had said in November that "there are some politicians who are creating chaos on the ground and should be sent to space".

"I will ask Suparco to ensure that once these politicians go to space, they cannot return," he had said.