Ansari, Anousheh (First Female Space Tourist)

Anousheh Ansari (Persian: انوشه انصاری) is the Iranian-American co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems, Inc. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X PRIZE. On 18 September 2006, she became the world’s first space blogger, first female space tourist, and the first female Muslim and first Iranian in space.

Early life

Born Anoushesh Raissyan on 12 September 1966 in Mashhad, Iran, Ansari and her parents moved to Tehran shortly afterward. Ansari witnessed the Iranian Revolution in 1979. She emigrated to the United States in 1984 as a teenager who did not speak English in part, according to CNN, “because her family wanted her to pursue her passion for the sciences to the fullest extent possible.”

Education

She received her Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science at George Mason University and her master’s degree at George Washington University. After graduation, Ansari began work at MCI, where she met her future husband, Hamid Ansari. They married in 1991. She is fluent in English and French as well as her native Persian and has also been acquiring a working knowledge of Russian for her space mission.

Business career

In 1993, she persuaded her husband and her brother-in-law Amir Ansari to co-found Telecom Technologies, Inc., using their savings and corporate retirement accounts, as a wave of deregulation hit the telecommunications industry. The company was acquired by Sonus Networks, Inc. in 2000 for $550 million dollars in stock. Since the sale, Sonus’ stock has fallen from $40 a share to under $5. Ansari and eight other individuals are the defendants in a shareholder suit that, among other things, accuses her of insider trading.

Honors and awards

Ansari has received multiple honors, including the George Mason University Entrepreneurial Excellence Award, the George Washington University Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Southwest Region. While under her leadership, Telecom Technologies, Inc. earned recognition as one of Inc. magazine’s 500 fastest-growing companies and one of Deloitte & Touche’s Fast 500 technology companies. She was listed in Fortune magazine’s “40 under 40” list in 2001 and honored by Working Woman magazine as the winner of the 2000 National Entrepreneurial Excellence award.

Activism

Ansari has an interest in social entrepreneurship. She has served on the boards of directors for the Make-a-Wish Foundation of North Texas and Collin County Children’s Advocacy Center. She works with a number of other non-profit organizations, including the Ashoka: Innovators for the Public in its support of social entrepreneurs.

Space-related career

Ansari is a member of the X Prize Foundation’s Vision Circle, as well as its Board of Trustees. Along with her brother-in-law, Amir Ansari, she made a multi-million dollar contribution to the X-Prize foundation on 5 May 2004, the 43rd anniversary of Alan Shepard’s sub-orbital spaceflight. The X-Prize was officially renamed the Ansari X Prize in honor of their donation.

The Ansari family investment firm, also named Prodea, has announced a partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd. and the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (FSA) to create a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles (the Space Adventures Explorer) for global commercial use.

2006 spaceflight

Ansari trained as a backup for Daisuke Enomoto for a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station, through Space Adventures, Ltd. On 21 August 2006, Enomoto was medically disqualified from flying the Soyuz TMA-9 mission that was due to launch the following month. The next day Ansari was elevated to the prime crew. Asked what she hoped to achieve on her spaceflight, Ansari said, “I hope to inspire everyone”especially young people, women, and young girls all over the world, and in Middle Eastern countries that do not provide women with the same opportunities as men”to not give up their dreams and to pursue them…It may seem impossible to them at times. But I believe they can realize their dreams if they keep it in their hearts, nurture it, and look for opportunities and make those opportunities happen.” On 18 September 2006, the spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, en route to the International Space Station (ISS), with Ansari becoming only the fourth (and first female) space tourist. Her contract forbids disclosure of the amount paid, but previous space tourists have paid in excess of US$20 million.

Spaceflight events

Ansari lifted off on the Soyuz TMA-9 mission with fellow cosmo/astronauts commander Mikhail Tyurin (Russian) and flight engineer Michael Lopez-Alegria (American) at 4:59 (UTC) on Monday, September 18, 2006 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The space craft docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday September 20, 2006 at 5:21 (UTC)

During the flight Ansari suffered from lower back pain and nausea, classic space sickness symptoms for a first time space traveller according to her fellow astronaut Lopez-Alegria. The sickness was bad enough for Ansari to take medication to help her spend much of the flight sleeping.

Stay

During her eight-day stay onboard the International Space Station, Ansari has agreed to perform a series of experiments on behalf of the European Space Agency. She will conduct four experiments, including:

• Researching the mechanisms behind anemia.
• How changes in muscles influence lower back pain.
• Consequences of space radiation on ISS crew members and different species of microbes that have made a home for themselves on the space station.

Anusheh wrote vivid and detailed experiences of her stay in ISS in her daily blog. She covered topics of health, outside watching, gravity, personal hygine, dining and crew communication and friendship.

Return

She will return with the Expedition 13 crew. Anousheh’s trip to the ISS took about two days from launch to docking, but the return to Earth takes only less than 3.5 hours.

Interviews

On 16 September 2006, about 24 hours before her departure, an interview was aired with Anousheh Ansari on Channel 4 of Iran national TV. The interview was a live chat with her speaking from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the show Night’s Sky, a program on current astronomy events that frequently hosts Iranian researchers and scientists. The hosts of the show wished her success and thanked her on behalf of Iranians. Ansari in return thanked them and called for people to witness how hard work and aspiration makes the seemingly-impossible possible. She urged women and men to think freely and let their imagination show the way to achievement, with an open mind, implying when ingredients of success are not necessarily present.

On 22 September 2006, she told the reporters that she has no regrets and said “I am having a wonderful time here. It’s been more than what I expected, and I am enjoying every single second of it. The entire experience has been wonderful up here,”

No politics

Ansari intended to wear the U.S. flag on her spacesuit and the version of the Iranian flag that predated the 1979 Islamic Revolution, to honor the two countries that have contributed to her life. At the insistence of the Russian and U.S. governments, she did not wear the Iranian flag, but wore the Iranian colors instead. She and her husband have said no political message was intended, despite the increasing tension in US-Iran relations, which has dominated world headlines in the weeks leading up to her historic launch. She says she “plans to devote her mission to expanding a global consciousness she expects will be seeded with her first look at Earth from space.” On the September 18th, 2006 lift-off, Ansari accompanied the U.S.-Russian Expedition 14 crew on the Soyuz TMA-9 capsule. That crew, Spanish-American Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian Mikhail Tyurin, are starting a six-month stint in space. Ansari will return to Earth after ten days with the Expedition 13 crew on the Soyuz TMA-8 capsule.

Source: Anousheh Ansari. (2006, September 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:47, September 28, 2006.