 | | 07-25-2006, 06:56 AM |
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Joined: Jan 2002
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| Star Trek fan is first female space tourist
Quote:
AS a girl growing up in Tehran before the Islamic revolution, Anousheh Ansari watched repeats of Star Trek and dreamt of becoming an astronaut. She never tired of telling friends that one day she would “see the stars”.
Nearly three decades later, Ansari’s childhood fantasies are about to come true as she prepares to become the first female space tourist.
Now a multi-millionaire in the United States, Ansari, 39, who made her fortune from telecommunications software, has secured a flight in a Russian Soyuz rocket to the international space station 220 miles above Earth.
“It would be nice to get outside the planet and see the universe for what it really is,” she said.
Earlier this year Ansari passed stringent medical tests and spent weeks in training at Star City, the space centre outside Moscow that has prepared every Russian cosmonaut since Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space in 1961.
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However, it is in the more earthly field of female liberation that Ansari’s journey of discovery could have the greatest impact, particularly in Iran where many women are treated as second-class citizens
“Not many women in Iran have a chance to develop a top-flight business career,” said Kamal Nazeri, an Iranian businessman. “To be the first Iranian woman in space is a breakthrough which will stimulate many to seek to improve their lives.”
Ansari was 12 when the Shah of Iran fell in 1979. Her father lost his job when the wine merchants’ business he managed was closed by the authorities.
At 17 and speaking little English, she moved to America, where she earned a degree in electrical engineering and met her husband and business partner Hamid, 42.
| Star Trek fan is first female space tourist - Sunday Times - Times Online
What an incredible woman! Supporter of science, businesswoman and now space tourist.
There are some pictures of her in training here |
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