Anousheh Ansari

In four days, the space station will host Iranian American entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari, who funded the X Prize. That prize led to the first private suborbital flight, achieved by SpaceShipOne.

… the Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and the NASA astronaut Suni Williams… are waiting in Baikonur, Russia for launching… along with a space tourist, Anousheh Ansari… [Link; note that the NYT probably misreported Williams' launch date]

The Russians have scrambled to make the toilet on Ansari’s Soyuz space pod suitable for a woman. There have been no other concessions. During the two-day trip to the station, Ansari will get privacy only if her crewmates… float into one cramped chamber while she stays in the other…

… Ansari [is] a U.S. citizen who calls herself a “liberal Muslim…” “I’m hoping… to help people’s minds open to the possibility of Iranians not all being terrorists…” [Link]

Ansari made her money in telecom software:

Born in 1966 in Mashhad, Iran, Ansari witnessed the Iranian revolution in 1979. She immigrated to the United States in 1984 as a teenager who did not speak English… Anousheh, along with her husband Hamid and brother-in-law Amir, founded TTI in 1993. The company was acquired by Sonus Networks, Inc. in 2000 [for $500M]. [Link]

Inspirational female pioneer and desi American astronaut Sunita Williams will join this crew in December for a longer six-month deploymentWilliams is a former helicopter pilot in the U.S. Navy whose parents are Indian and Slavic:

Sunita Williams

Williams received her commission as an Ensign in the United States Navy from the United States Naval Academy in May 1987…. made overseas deployments to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in support of Desert Shield… she was assigned to the USS Saipan (LHA-2), Norfolk, Virginia, as the Aircraft Handler and the Assistant Air Boss…

Her parents, Dr. Deepak and Mrs. Bonnie Pandya, reside in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Dr. Deepak Pandya is a famous neuroanatomist. [Link]

Update: Williams is going up in December, not next week (thanks, Abhi). She will be one of the rare female spacewalkers, perhaps due to her height:

… the 48 spacewalkers for NASA since 2000 have included only three women… Strength and a long reach can be helpful on a spacewalk, and women are, on average, shorter and less muscular than men…

When NASA updated its spacesuit in the 1990s, it ordered only mediums and larges because the vast majority of its spacewalkers then wore those sizes. The agency decided it wasn’t cost-effective to buy suits for a few small men and women…

Sunita Williams [is] set to make four demanding spacewalks in 2006 and 2007 after joining the crew of the space station this year. [Link]