US entrepreneur and space tourist Anousheh Ansari.
Space tourist breaks three records
A RUSSIAN Soyuz spacecraft blasted off yesterday carrying a woman set to notch up three space records: the first woman tourist, first Muslim woman, and first Iranian in orbit.
Anousheh Ansari, 40, an Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur, joined a Russian cosmonaut and US astronaut in the cramped interior of Soyuz TMA-9 for a flight to the International Space Station.
Ms Ansari, a US citizen based in Texas who left Iran in 1984, said she wanted to be an example to her compatriots. "I think my flight has become a sort of ray of hope for young Iranians living in Iran, helping them to look forward to something positive, because everything they've been hearing is all so very depressing and talks of war and bloodshed," she said last week.
[Ms Ansari has not said how much her ticket cost but previous space tourists have paid the Russian space program about $US20 million ($A26.5 million).]
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