X-Woman Trains for Space

[Mark Reiff <markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FYI,

"X-Woman Trains for Space"
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12586173/#060505a

: Iranian-born entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari, the woman behind the
: Ansari X Prize's $10 million purse, has surfaced in Russia as a
: backup cosmonaut for September's flight to the international space
: station — and it's likely that she'll eventually realize her dream
: of going into space.

: If Ansari were to fly this fall, she would be the first woman to
: pay her own way into outer space. That wouldn't happen unless
: Japanese millionaire Daisuke ("Dice-K") Enomoto were to bow out
: for some reason. Enomoto is paying an estimated $20 million for a
: weeklong visit to the international space station — and by all
: reports, his training is going well.

: But the fact that Ansari is going through the training puts her in
: good position for a later Soyuz flight. Such tours are arranged by
: Virginia-based Space Adventures, which already has helped put
: three millionaires (Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth and Greg Olsen)
: into orbit.

: "There are a lot of people in the queue," Eric Anderson, Space
: Adventures' chief executive officer, said today at the
: International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles. After
: Enomoto, the next person in the queue is software billionaire
: Charles Simonyi, who is slated to go on a Soyuz flight as early as
: next spring.

: So where does Ansari stand in the queue? There's not much
: information available. Back in March, Space Adventures pooh-poohed
: reports that Ansari would be Enomoto's backup — and even today,
: Anderson shied away from confirming the Russian reports about her
: status. However, he seemed to signal that Ansari fully intended to
: follow through with a spaceflight in the future.

: (Check out this Russian-language gallery of Ansari's activities in
: Russia last week.)
http://www.energia.ru/energia/iss/iss14/photo_04-28.html

: Ansari is part of a family that made millions in the
: telecommunications industry. She and her brother-in-law, Amir
: Ansari, reportedly gave the X Prize Foundation something in the
: neighborhood of $1 million for use as seed money to buy a
: $10 million "hole-in-one" insurance policy backing up the X Prize
: pledge. The team behind the SpaceShipOne rocket plane satisfied
: the conditions for a payoff in October 2004, before the policy's
: deadline.

: At the time, the Ansaris made no secret about their dreams of
: spaceflight. Yet another space connection was forged this
: February, when Space Adventures announced that the Ansaris' Prodea
: venture fund would be investing in the development of suborbital
: spacecraft in Russia.

: Updates about that spacecraft, known as the Explorer, may be
: coming out of Russia sometime in the next couple of months.

: And then there's Space Adventures' big-ticket item: a $100 million
: package that would give the buyer a Russian ride around the moon
: and back. Anderson said the offer has generated more interest than
: he expected — and who knows? Perhaps someone will come up with the
: money. Greg Olsen, who shared the stage with Anderson at a
: presentation this morning, said he was intrigued.

: "This moon thing really excites me," said Olsen, a scientist/
: entrepreneur who made millions when the company he helped start up
: was sold. "But I guess I'll have to go out and sell another
: company before I do that."

--
Mark Reiff <markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>


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