Anousheh Ansari had the perfect excuse to skip astronomy class.
“I’m sorry, I can’t finish this lesson,” she said to the teacher. “I’m going to space.”
In 2006, space became available on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft bound for the International Space Station. The Japanese candidate was unable to participate in the mission due to a bout with chronic kidney stones. Ansari was next in line.
She jumped at the chance and became the first woman to self-fund a space flight. But what she did next greased the wheels of commercial space travel and laid the foundation for future space travel.
Ansari was this week awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology, where he studied astronomy online, in recognition of his impact on space exploration and research.
Mr. Ansari witnessed the growth of the Islamic revolution in Tehran. When Khomeini took over in 1979, the regime closed her school and her ambitions to become an astrophysicist or astronaut were thwarted. “The new Iran did not tolerate such dreams of women,” she said.
Ansari and his family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1984, where he studied electrical engineering and computer science. She and her husband started a telecommunications company.
Their work brought in millions of income. As his 40th birthday approached, Ansari booked a $20 million plane ticket to space.
Working with Space Adventures, a company that offers private space travel through the Russian space program, Ansari underwent six months of astronaut training and took off in September 2006. The 11-day ISS expedition changed her.
“Everything in your world is out there: your family, your friends, your school, your home, your memories. And you’re seeing it from there. It’s like an out-of-body experience,” said Ansari, who received his Ph.D. on Thursday.
“All the little things disappear and you only see the big things. You see the landscape, you don’t see boundaries or borders. That’s the message I took home.”
After battling a bout of microgravity-induced vomiting, Ansari took part in experiments on back pain and anemia, taking swabs from his body to test how bacteria grows in space.
Re-entry was the scariest part. The Soyuz capsule was small and hot. Reaching into the atmosphere and feeling the parachute deploy was like driving a wheelbarrow over Niagara Falls, Ansari recalled, quoting another astronaut.
Russia did not have the ability to make an open ocean landing like Artemis II, so the capsule crashed violently onto land. However, Ansari returned home safely. Her journey greatly influenced her subsequent actions.
“I realized that we typically spend 80 percent of our time on the trivial things, what I call the ‘noise of life,’ and maybe only 20 percent on the big-picture important things,” she said.
“I decided to reverse that ratio and focus 80 percent of my time and attention on the important things in life, and only 20 percent on the noise.”
Mr. Ansari left the company to become chief executive officer of the XPRIZE Foundation, a nonprofit that runs lucrative competitions aimed at promoting innovation. The first competition, Ansari XPRIZE, awarded $10 million in funding to the first non-governmental organization to build a reusable manned spacecraft.
Burt Rutan won with SpaceShipOne, an experimental spaceplane. The award is thought to have sparked a flurry of activity, revitalizing the US$469 billion commercial space sector and leading to regular launches from companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Approximately 700 people went to space. That number is likely to skyrocket given the renewed interest from the commercial industry that Artemis II and Ansari partially helped launch.
Ansari says space visits could soon become akin to climbing Mount Everest, a proving ground for adventurers who can afford it, with the added gift of proving the preciousness of Earth to all who travel beyond the atmosphere.
“I’m not saying everyone should go to space,” Ansari said. “But anyone who wants to should have the opportunity to experience it, because as I explained, it changed me.”
“I now spend all of my time at XPRIZE solving problems that prevent a fair and prosperous world. star trek Because I’m a fan star trek The world to us (without the Klingons, of course).
In the latest chapter of XPRIZE, teams from four countries competed for $3.5 million to test new ways to quickly detect bushfires from space last week at the New South Wales Rural Fire Service headquarters.
Asked about the conflict ravaging his country, Ansari said: “We are facing a big mountain right now. We have to overcome it to reach the beautiful future that I want.”
But her cosmic memories, and the new Earthrise images taken by the Artemis II crew, give her hope that peace is possible.
The Examine newsletter explains and analyzes science with a rigorous focus on the evidence. Sign up to get it every week.
Angus Dalton is science reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or Email.from a partner
#space #Artemis #million #Anousheh #flew