X-Prize Funder Will Be First Female Tourist In Space

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters has the news that Anousheh Ansari, the funder of the X Prize, has been named as the first female tourist in space. She'll be going up in mid-September after a Japanese entrepeneur was deemed unfit for the trip." From the article: "Ansari, a 39-year-old chairwoman and co-founder of Prodea Systems, Inc., a digital home technology company, will be the world's fourth space tourist. 'Anousheh Ansari has been officially named to the Soyuz TMA-9 primary crew,' Space Adventures, working in partnership with Russia's space agency Roskosmos to launch space tourists, said in a statement."

Re:Gotta say it...

[megaditto]

Not that funny. Going to the bathroom at zero-G is not pretty. While males have a condom-like urine collection device, females are forced to essentially urinate into a diaper. I guess this is because things like catheters carry a high risk of injury and infection.

Also, it is impossible to have a smoke in space since the matches cannot be lit up.

Re:Hmmm

[pedantic bore]

Well, she is darned exceptional.

But you're right, the sexist spin of the article is both disgusting and archaic -- but easily explained. "Nth space tourist" doesn't get a headline; "First female space tourist" does. Given that these companies are trying to promote space tourism, they are likely to issue press releases with whatever hook will help get them published. "First space tourist with green eyes", etc. might not play in Peoria, but I bet we'll see "First grandma space tourist", "first cancer survivor space tourist", etc sooner or later.

Would you go?

[legoburner]

If you had the spare $20million knocking around, would you head off to the ISS or would you wait for the cheaper, (safer?) Virgin Galactic service to start trips to 100km up? Virgin costs $200000 per trip... is the ISS trip worth 100 times more?

Personally I'd sooner go for 100 trips on Virgin Galactic. Maybe when the ISS is complete it will be more tempting, but only when the Disney fun modules are complete and equipped. (Not to mention the italian restaurant module).

Re:Hmmm

[FleaPlus]

But you're right, the sexist spin of the article is both disgusting and archaic -- but easily explained. "Nth space tourist" doesn't get a headline; "First female space tourist" does.

Indeed. I actually tried submitting this story to slashdot a few days ago, but I didn't emphasize the "first female space tourist" angle. This was rejected, along with a later variant. For the curious, here's the text of my submissions. The submissions also include links to some better articles, and Anousheh Ansari's official site. For those of you who are curious, the links also contain photos of Ansari:

X Prize Donor to Visit ISS

The BBC reports that engineer-entrepreneur (and Iranian-American) Anousheh Ansari will be the next self-funded visitor [bbc.co.uk] to the International Space Station. Anousheh Ansari [anoushehansari.com] is known for her multi-million dollar donation to the Ansari X Prize and her company's funding of plans to build private spaceports in Singapore and the UAE. She will launch to the ISS on a Russian rocket next month.

The BBC reports that engineer-entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari will be the next self-funded visitor [bbc.co.uk] to the International Space Station. Known for her multi-million dollar donation to the Ansari X Prize, she will launch to the ISS on a Russian rocket next month, fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut. Ansari recently discussed [space.com] her hopes for Bigelow Aerospace -- which successfully launched their private space station prototype this summer -- to provide a better-suited destination for an increased number of commercial astronauts in the future.

Oooo

[Konster]

Male, female. Don't care what. Buying your way to space is just that weather you wear pantyhose or not.

This is not news. News for those that don't care.

photo caption contest

[sunhou]

Surely someone will have a good description of this photo of Anousheh Ansari. [anoushehansari.com]

Enomoto ain't going?

[Megane]

It was only last week, but I'm surprised that I hadn't heard in the "usual places" (slashdot, digg) that Dice-K [dice-k.com] (check out that picture!) got grounded. Damn, now we don't get to make jokes about Otakus! In! Space! Rumor had it he was planning to wear some sort of costume [google.com] while up there.

Trivia: it was only revealed a few months ago (because that's now long it took Neil to realize it) that translator Neil Nadelman came up with that nickname.

She Deserves This

[Rob Carr]

Anoushe Ansari funded the X-Prize. She deserves this, and yet she's paying for it -- again helping to grow the private space industry.

Even more entertaining, she's a lot of people's worst nightmare:

• The Muslim extremists are horrified that a woman is accomplishing so much...and not having to walk 10 paces behind the Soyuz on the way to orbit.
• The Christian extremists are horrified that a woman is accomplsihing so much...and not having to walk 10 paces behind the Soyuz on the way to orbit.
• The Iranians are horrified because it's showing their people what the West and a modern lifestyle can provide.
• George Allen is terrified he'll forget and refer to her as "Macaca".
• The American loonies -- how long until the paranoid "They shouldn't allow Muslims on the space station" screaming starts?
• Slashdot readers are horrified because she's a beautiful, intelligent woman who wouldn't go out with them, if they could even get the courage to ask her out in the first place.
• I'm horrified because I blogged about Ms. Ansari going 4 days ago [unspace.net] and never thought to submit it to Slashdot.

Godspeed Anoushe Ansari. I hope you have a great time.

Re:Hmmm

[antifoidulus]

Well, she is an Iranian woman, not a country that is, how shall we say, enlightened when it comes to women's rights. Whether or not this will make a damn bit of difference to some 13 year old girl forced to wear a hijab and told she can't get a good education because of her gender remains to be seen.