September 13, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Space cadet heads for the stars
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, September 13, Graphic News: When Iranian-born Anousheh Ansari was a small girl in Tehran, she used to gaze at the stars and fantasise about Ògoing up thereÓ. In the end, her dream came true sooner than expected.

In August Ansari replaced Daisuke Enomoto -- a Japanese businessman who had failed his medical -- to take her place on the 14th mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

When the photogenic Ansari waves goodbye to Earth and blasts off aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on September 18, she will become the fourth genuine Òspace touristÓ -- the first female and the first Muslim -- after two Americans and a South African.

Initially the idea of space tourism was a bit of a joke, but today it is firmly established in the world consciousness, changing the ultra-elite militarized ÒRight StuffÓ image of human space flight to one that is at least attainable to those willing to pay the current $20-million price tag.

Though Earthlings have been imagining the ultimate trip for many Moons, space tourism firmly got off the ground in April 2001 when Dennis Tito, an American businessman and former JPL scientist, became the first fee-paying visitor to the ISS. He was followed in 2002 by South African computer millionaire Mark Shuttleworth, and Gregory Olsen, an American entrepreneur and scientist who flew to the ISS in 2005. Like Ansari, they all bought their tickets through U.S.-based Space Adventures, Ltd., which remains the only company to have sent paying passengers to space. In conjunction with RussiaÕs Federal Space Agency (FSA) and Energia, Space Adventures has already broken though the profitability barrier with its flights from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Ansari, who arrived in the United States at age 18, made a fortune with her husband and brother-in-law via their Telecom Technologies Inc. In 2004 the family made a multi-million dollar contribution to the X-Prize Foundation, set up to Òstart a private spaceflight revolutionÓ. Renamed the Ansari X-Prize, the $10 million prize was handed out when SpaceShipOne rocketed into space in October 2004. 

The X-Prize triggered would-be space tourists everywhere to begin to chart their private paths to the stars. Space-transportation startups now include Richard BransonÕs Virgin Galactic, PayPal co-founder Elon MuskÕs SpaceX, and U.S. entrepreneur Robert BigelowÕs space hotel project.

British-based Virgin Galactic has signed a deal with Mojave Aerospace under which SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan will construct five suborbital tourist craft ready for test flights as early as 2007.

California-based SpaceX suffered a setback earlier this year when the maiden flight of its liquid-fuelled Falcon 1 failed but a second launch is planned for November. Its Falcon 9 rocket is designed to slash the price of lifting a payload into low earth orbit to less than $3,000/kg -- compared to $22,000/kg for a shuttle launch.

Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace is developing a series of Earth orbiting inflatable modules. The privately built and financed habitable structures, dubbed Nautilus, will be available for research and industrial use, as well as space tourism.

And the Ansaris themselves have set up a new company, Prodea, which has formed a partnership with Space Adventures and the FSA to create a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles for global commercial use.

Anousheh Ansari may only be the worldÕs fourth space tourist but who knows -- in ten or twenty years time maybe the ISS will be a historic structure, where people go to see where the space tourism business all began.
/ENDS