Space tourist talks about great trip
Students told how Anousheh Ansari fulfilled her dream
By WHITNEY ALLEN
Times Staff Writer whitneydallen@hotmail.com
As a girl, Anousheh Ansari had always dreamed of going to space, but females growing up in Iran don't usually get encouragement for such dreams.
So, she moved to the United States when she was 16, earned advanced degrees in engineering and started an Internet company, Telecom Technologies, that she and her husband sold for $750 million. Last year, she spent $20 million of her self-made fortune to buy a ride to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.
"I always wanted to be an astronaut, but everyone always told me that it would never happen," said Ansari, who spoke to Bob Jones High School students Thursday during a schoolwide assembly.
Students sat on the edge of their seats while she explained the intense training she endured to prepare for her trip to space.
"I had to learn Russian," said Ansari, 41. "I trained in Moscow during one of the coldest winters in history.
"It took two days to reach the space station and I spent the first six hours of the trip with my knees pulled up to my chest."
Even before her trip to space, Ansari was a major proponent of space innovation. Her family's name is attached to the Ansari X-Prize, a $10 million prize awarded in 2004 to entrepreneur Burt Rutan for his SpaceShipOne, the first commercial space vehicle to crack the atmosphere.
Tim Pickens, president of Orion Propulsion in Huntsville, worked on the team that built SpaceShipOne. Pickens and his wife, Melanie, a chemistry teacher at Bob Jones, were among those responsible for bringing Ansari to Madison to speak to the students.
After she spoke, the students asked Ansari questions about her trip to space. One of her favorite experiences, she said, was eating M&Ms while floating weightless.
One student asked, "Do you believe in aliens and extraterrestrial beings?"
Ansari quickly answered, "I sure do. The universe is so huge, it is hard to believe that we are the only beings in the entire universe.
