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The dramatic journey of Anousheh Ansari, the first female private space explorer

From the troubled Iran of the 1970s all the way to space, it has been a dramatic journey of hope and grit for Anousheh Ansari. The tech entrepreneur, engineer and the first female private space explorer in history talks to Gargi Gupta

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(l-r) Anousheh Ansari, Soyuz Commander and Expedition Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin and Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria in 2006
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Anousheh Ansari fell in love with the stars when, as a young girl growing up in Mashhad, Iran's second largest city, she would sleep out in the open during summer. "We didn't have air-conditioning and it was cooler that way," she says. It was the 1970s, and the times were tough with the country in the midst of political turmoil (culminating in the overthrow of the king in 1979). Anousheh's family was privileged, but even so her father lost his job and everyone around her was tense with the violence, the rioting mobs and the bombs and shootings around them. In the circumstances, the stars became a refuge for little Anousheh.

"I would imagine the new worlds I could visit, the mystery of what's out there," says the intrepid tech entrepreneur, engineer and 'space tourist', who was in Jaipur for the literature festival this past week. In 2006, she realised her dream of travelling to the stars, which made her the first female private space explorer in history and the first space traveller of Iranian descent.

But the journey to the stars was anything but easy. First, there was the Islamic Revolution – Anousheh vividly remembers an incident when a mob set the bank on the ground floor of the apartment they lived on fire, and started throwing stones. "I was around 12 and my sister was six. My mother covered us with a chador and walked out – the police was out firing, the Islamic Guards were patrolling the streets. It was scary."

Her family decided to migrate to the US, where they had a sponsor in Anousheh's aunt who was a resident of Virginia, but the US wasn't moved. Speaking in the context of all the recent rhetoric in the US and Europe over welcoming or restricting refugees, Anousheh says she sat for eight-nine hours in the American embassy with her mother and sister and no one would even grant them an interview. "It took us 12 years to get the visa," she says.

Settling down in the US wasn't easy either. Anousheh knew no English. "When I left Iran, I was 16 years old and in class XI. But in the US, I was admitted to class IX." Anousheh, however, was determined not to waste those academic years. "In the holidays, I went to the nearby college and attended English classes non-stop from eight in the morning to eight in the evening." The determination paid off and she went on to study electrical engineering at George Mason University, Virginia.

The chance to travel to space happened much later, when Telecom Technologies, the company she'd founded with her husband and brother-in-law after college, was sold off in a multi-million dollar deal. In 2000, the three has also contributed $10 million to set up the Ansari X Prize, which invited teams anywhere in the world to build manned spaceships.

The way Anousheh tells it, it seems she'd actually been working towards the deal which would give her the financial wherewithal to afford to pay her way to space. Denis Tito, an American multimillionaire, had shown the way when he paid $15 million for an eight-day sojourn on the International Space Station in 2001, travelling by the Russian aircraft Soyuz. "I heard about Tito when it happened and I thought, if nothing else, this would be my chance. I was determined to grow the business to a level where I could afford to do this," she says.

But even after she'd paid up – how much is not known and Anousheh won't tell – there was the gender bias within the Russian space establishment. "My husband travelled with me on my first trip to Space City near Moscow, where I trained for nearly a year, before the launch. A Russian general met us there but he wouldn't even look at me; he'd only talk to my husband. My husband kept telling him that it wasn't he that was travelling, I was the crazy one, but it didn't make any difference."

Hamid Ansari, Anousheh's husband, had always known of her fascination with space. "The joke among us was, when we took the vows was, 'until death do us part…or until I went to space.' I have always been fortunate in having people in my life who have been very supportive of my crazy ideas," she says.

The training was gruelling too. "I especially hated the spinning chair, though I loved the parabolic flights where you could experience zero-gravity for about 30 seconds."

Anousheh flew on the Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station in August 2006, and stayed there for eight days doing research and writing a weblog – which made her especially famous. Among her memorable experiences in space, she says, was the sight of earth. "The spacecraft orbited the earth in 90 minutes and you could see the lights of the cities, the play of thunder and rain like a light show. The diving line between day and night never ceased to amaze me."

It's been 10 years since, and Anousheh's written a book about her journey. She's also launched a company which is now working with the Tata Trust and the state government of Rajasthan to provide information and interactive services in health, education, sarkari programmes and the like via the television set in one lakh villages in India. Her engagement with space remains confined to her being a member on the boards of several companies that are in the emerging area of private space travel. As for going up to space again, she says that she doesn't have any plans yet. "But I hope to. I would go and live in space if I was given the chance. It's a very expensive endeavour. My husband tells me that you have a very expensive hobby."

She's happy at the recent rapprochement between her native and adoptive countries. She's hoping that it means she can travel to meet her admirers in Iran. "I've been told that a lot of Iranian girls look up to me. I've had video conversations with some, but now I'm hoping to be back, perhaps for the 10th anniversary of my flight."

It will be Anousheh's first trip back home in 30 years.

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