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."

Comments

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it implicitly sexist to make such a big deal out of the first woman in space? Unless we're going to have stories over the first green eyed person in space and the first left hander etc. ad nauseam. Why pick this person out as exceptional?

Re:Hmmm

[kfg]

Isn't it implicitly sexist to make such a big deal out of the first woman in space?

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

[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 to the International Space Station. Anousheh Ansari 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 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 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.

Re:Hmmm

[spaceyhackerlady]

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.

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

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 and never thought to submit it to Slashdot.

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