First Woman Space Tourist Scheduled for September 28 Return
Dirk Vander Ploeg
September 28, 2006
The Iranian-American multimillionaire has become only the fourth tourist astronaut to travel into space and visit the International Space Station.
Anousheh Ansari blasted off aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 space ferry from Moscow on September 18, 2006. She was accompanied on his trip by NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. The three rendezvoused with the ISS. The successful docking procedure has become almost routine for the U.S. Russian and European space officials.
Ansari was originally scheduled for a future mission but replaced Japanese space tourist Daisuke Enomoto who had failed to pass his medical tests.
Speaking to reporters from the ISS on September 25, Ansari described her flight to the space station as "uncomfortable". She said that she suffered from motion sickness, back pain, and a headache. But everything changed when she arrived at the ISS. "The entire experience has been wonderful up here," she added.
She added that she tried to maintain a regular work schedule and keep on top of her office work, reveiwwing status reports from Prodea Systems, the telecommunications company she co-founded.
European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter said it was always nice to have guests on the space station.
She was born in 1966 in Iran and immigrated along with her parents to the U.S. after the Islamic revolution. Now a U.S. citizen she has earned several degrees and has filed patents in the filed of telecommunications.
Her family has invested in advanced technology as well as space exploration and contributed 10 million dollars to the X foundation which offered a prize for the development of a reusable human spacecraft.
The money formed the Ansari X prize which was won by Mojave Aerospace Ventures for successfully launching and then re-launching a reusable spacecraft within two weeks.
Ansari is scheduled to return to earth on September 28, 2006.
Print
Email
