Anousheh Ansari and her first self-funded space trip helped spark commercial space travel
Anousheh Ansari had the best excuse to skip astronomy class.
“I’m sorry, I can’t finish this lesson,” he told his teacher. “I’m going to space.”
The year was 2006, and a spot had opened up on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft bound for the International Space Station. A chronic kidney stone crisis had prevented a Japanese candidate from running for office. Ansari was next.
She took the chance and became the first woman to go into space on her own money. But what he did next greased the wheels of commercial space travel and laid the foundation for future space tourism.
Ansari was this week awarded an honorary doctorate in science by Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology, where he studied astronomy online, for his impact on space exploration and research.
Ansari witnessed the growing Islamic revolution in Tehran. His ambition to become an astrophysicist or astronaut was derailed when Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979 and the regime closed his school. “New Iran did not tolerate such dreams of a woman,” he said.
His family moved to Washington DC in 1984 after Ansari studied electrical engineering and computer science. She went on to found a telecommunications company with her husband.
Their work has earned them millions. As his 40th birthday approached, Ansari booked his $20 million ticket to space.
Working with Space Adventures, a company that offers private space trips through the Russian space program, Ansari received cosmonaut training for six months before departing in September 2006. His 11-day expedition to the ISS transformed him.
“You’re out there where your whole world is — your family, your friends, your school, your home, your memories. And you look at it from there; it’s like an out-of-body experience,” Ansari said after receiving his doctorate Thursday.
“All the little things disappear and you only see the big things. You see the sights, you don’t see the borders, you don’t see the dividers. That’s the message I take with me.”
After battling vomiting-inducing illness caused by microgravity, Ansari participated in experiments on back pain and anemia and took samples from his body to test how bacteria would grow in space.
Re-entry was the scariest moment. The Soyuz capsule was small and warm. Borrowing another astronaut’s phrase, Ansari recalled that hitting the atmosphere and feeling the parachutes open was like crossing Niagara Falls in a wheelbarrow.
The capsule crashed hard on land because Russia did not have the opportunity to land offshore like the Artemis II. But Ansari managed to reach home. This journey had a profound impact on what he did next.
“I realized that we normally spend 80 percent of our time on the little things that are what I call the ‘noise of life,’ and maybe only 20 percent on the important things in the big picture,” he said.
“I decided to reverse that ratio and focus 80 percent of my time and attention on the big important things in my life and only 20 percent on the noise.”
Ansari quit his job and became chief executive of the XPRIZE Foundation, a nonprofit organization that runs lucrative competitions aimed at spurring technological innovation. The first competition, Ansari XPRIZE, offered US$10 million to the first nonprofit to build a reusable crewed spacecraft.
Burt Rutan won with his experimental space plane, SpaceShipOne. The buzz sparked by the prize has galvanized the US$469 billion commercial space industry, leading to regular launches from companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Approximately 700 people have gone to space; That number is likely to grow rapidly, given the renewed interest spurred by Artemis II and the commercial industry Ansari helped launch in part.
Ansari says visiting space may soon be akin to climbing Mount Everest; it’s a testing ground for adventurers who can afford it, as well as the gift of proving Earth’s worth to all who travel beyond our atmosphere.
“I’m not saying everyone should go to space,” Ansari said. “But those who have the desire should have the opportunity to experience it. Because, as I described, it transformed me.”
“I now spend all my time with XPRIZE solving the problems that prevent us from having a just and abundant world. Star Trek admire, so I want to build Star Trek the world for us; “Without the Klingons, of course.”
In a recent episode of XPRIZE, teams from four countries tested new ways to quickly detect bushfires from space, competing for $3.5 million at the NSW Rural Fire Service headquarters last week.
Asked about the conflicts ravaging his country, Ansari says: “We have a big hurdle right now that we need to overcome to get to that beautiful future that I hope for.”
But his memories of space and the new image of Earth rising captured by the Artemis II crew give him hope that peace may be possible.
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Angus Dalton is science correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X or email.
