New Delhi :
An Iranian-American Anousheh Ansari becomes the first female space tourist. She will hitch a ride to the ISS aboard the Soyuz TMA-9 capsule along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and U.S. astronaut Miguel Lopez-Alegria Ansari received her Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science at George Mason University.
Ansari co-founded Telecom Technologies Inc., a company designed to help telecom service providers to enhance their system performance and lower costs, which she sold in 2001.
Ansari maintains a blog on which she shares her experience of being kept quarantined since September 2 in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. "Do you consider yourself a role model for Iranian women and women in general? Well I certainly hope to be. In my work and everything that I have always done, I have tried to be an example.
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. Looking back at my life, I'm hoping that I could give them a positive example how that could happen.” said Ansari.
