X-Prize Funder Will Be First Female Tourist In Space 95
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."
Insert chauvanistic remark here (Score:3, Funny)
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But then she'll keep hounding the pilot to stop and ask for directions when they get lost!
Gotta say it... (Score:3, Funny)
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Also, it is impossible to have a smoke in space since the matches cannot be lit up.
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http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answer s/970411a.html [nasa.gov]
The Question
(Submitted April 11, 1997)
My first graders want to know, How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space? I think the potty chair is in place. Is this correct?
The Answer
We have come up with a number of answers to your question. We will let you, as the professional teacher, decide which is appropriate for your classroom and what is best left to the teachers lounge.
I. The Official NASA pages:
A. There is a
Tork-e Iroonieh (Score:2)
And Turks, too!
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- You're going to fast,
- Watch out for that satellite
- Meteors these days, No respect anymore
I kidd and I for one welcome our space visiting overlord. Everyone practice now - "Yes, Dear".
Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
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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 s
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
mod parent up (Score:2)
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And I'd argue that the first "female space tourist" was actually Helen Sharman [msn.com], who flew to Mir after winning a British lottery. After all, people who win a trip to Bermuda
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Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Well, it was 1963, you have to make some allowances for the attitudes of the time. Eileen Collins was the first shuttle commander after the Columbia disaster and Ansari will be the 40somthingth woman in space.
KFG
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
In 1963 everything to do with space was A Big Deal.
At the time of Mercury and Gemini a number of women quietly tried out to be astronauts. They did well, but NASA would have absolutely nothing to do with women in space. The 20 year gap between Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride included U.S. president Nixon signing legislation mandating equal employment opportunity for all U.S. federal government agencies. There were no exceptions, so NASA was dragged kicking and screaming in to the 20th century.
...laura, who meets Shuttle height requirements but would need to lose some weight
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I remember.
They did well, but NASA would have absolutely nothing to do with women in space.
Bloody goddam shame, but then at the time it was a big deal that Jackie wore pants. There were less well known women who got assaulted for doing the same, as I was once assaulted for letting my hair grow long.
People are funny critters.
KFG
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You are mistaking Iran for Saudi Arabia where the women are not even allowed to drive or go out of the house without be
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Money talks, and self-promotion is everything? She's just another high-paying piece of baggage.
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Isn't it implicitly sexist to make such a big deal out of the first woman in space?
No. Women (especially Iranian women) have greater hurdles to their accomplishment. So the article highlights that she's done something unique by overcoming those extra hurdles. It is only sexist to highlight this if one presumes that these hurdles are innate and not imposed. Second, such a media event could encourage young girls to reject sterotypes and study science and business. This could help increase the pool of engi
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I take your point in general - but it doesn't apply to Slashdot, which appears to have covered previous space tourists anyway (e.g., see http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/0 1/1625202 [slashdot.org] ).
Has there been vastly more media coverage over this because she's fe
To all you geeks knocking her (Score:3, Insightful)
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I don't recall people saying any such thing when any of the male tourists went up. So why offer her congratulations just because she's female?
Oh and as for the comments. It's called having a sense of humour. You may want to look it up in a dictionary.
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im not stupid, just british
also wasnt the last female "tourist" the "teacher in space"..........
I'll knock her (Score:1)
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From space?
Rendezvous with Rama (Score:1)
Would you go? (Score:3, Interesting)
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).
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20million is cheap.
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It depends, if they let me take some special brownies and an mp3 player up there with me, then hell yeah. Otherwise? I'll take the suborbital hop, and eat the brownies at the Spaceport. Also, I believe that they use Soyuz rockets, which are the safest space vehic
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But, as has been pointed out, it ain't orbit.
Personally I'm waiting to be asked.
KFG
Name says it all (Score:2)
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p.s. while my original post and this one were both tongue-in-cheek, I do have to say that I think whoever came up with the name "Universal Pictures" does deserve to be slapped around with a wet cluefish. Although I suppose I might need a time machine to do so at this
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OK, I take it back. When I said that I will never wait tables again, I wasn't thinking far enough ahead.
This would tempt me back to it.
As a woman, I gotta say "Cool!" (Score:3, Funny)
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I told her we already got one.
KFG
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Gotta say... (Score:3, Funny)
Oooo (Score:2, Interesting)
This is not news. News for those that don't care.
photo caption contest (Score:3, Interesting)
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The parent was defending her, don't flame him. Why is it the internet always turns ordinary people into arseholes?
By the way, when you mean dollars not Microsoft, you don't have to put the letter M in front of it, unless Morroco, Mexico, Myanmar, Madagascar or somewhere else switches to dollars.
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Hey, just because other people were being jerks doesn't give you the right to be a jerk to someone who wasn't being one. I think you're just trying to rationalise now. Maybe some of them wern't attacking her, but were complaining because they think a space program should be used for science, not as a holiday for rich people. Frankly, I think that if Roskosmos is managing to fund itself through space tourism then its fair enough, given the amount of real science they also do, I mean its not as if NASA, ESA e
Enomoto ain't going? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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Darn, that's gotta hurt, eh? All the money in the world can't buy... love, happiness, or a flight to the ISS.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5278190.stm [bbc.co.uk] :)
That article also has a picture showing that she is quite pretty on top of being smart and wealthy. If she weren't married, I think she'd be getting more marriage proposals from us geeks than congratulatory messages from Iranian women.
The second female in space... (Score:1)
Feminists (Score:1)
She's just the so-and-so many tourist in space. Why is it special she's a female, just because she has to wear a diaper when trying to pee??
Sheesh. I'll just go with the "wish I was her" here.
She's not the sixth nor the first female tourist. (Score:2)
The only thing that makes the Space Adventures tourists different is that they paid their own way, which
She Deserves This (Score:5, Interesting)
Even more entertaining, she's a lot of people's worst nightmare:
Godspeed Anoushe Ansari. I hope you have a great time.
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Sadly though, I don't think most of those people will ever hear about her, since what they don't want to hear won't be reported to them. (by the media they listen to). So it goes...
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http://www.space.com/news/060810_ansari_spaceprep. html [space.com]
Ansari (Score:3)
is this feminism at work? (Score:1)
I'd be pissed.
We will know the PC fabric is being stretch thin when we hear about 'the 1st half brazilian, half japanese albino, siamese twins in space'.
ffs. making a big deal about the fact she is a female, is so stupid.
I mean, if someone with more melanin wins an oscar, yeah, ok that is news, but women have been in space, can they just go ONE day with the feminist media exploiting their sex for headlines?
Who gives a fuck if she is an innie or an ou
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I'd be pissed.
It's also worth noting that her official website [anoushehansari.com] doesn't make any mention of her being the 'first female space tourist.' Instead, she describes herself as 'the fourth private space explorer to visit space, and the first astronaut of Iranian descent.'
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That's close enough to 'first female space tourist' for me.
Wow. I lose at speed-reading.
_THE_ funder of the X Prize? (Score:1)
sort of the first tourist... (Score:2)
Attractive too... (Score:3, Funny)
What? No terrorist jokes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow! What a hottie! (Score:2)
I wish I had 20 million to go to space with her, and be the first to have sex in space too!
Oh well... a guy can dream right?