Anousheh Ansari
We Dare You!
More from Anousheh on how you can live life as fully as hers.
On pursuing your dreams
“A life worth living is worth taking chances and risks. You have to find your way, and what makes you happy and what makes you feel fulfilled. Once you do that, you don’t have to jump right in and do something big and significant at the beginning, you can start off small. Each time you feel the joy of accomplishing something, and the exhilaration of trying something new, you’ll want to do more of it.”
On living without limits
“Women tend to put limitations on what they can accomplish or what field they should or shouldn’t go into because they say these are limitations that society or their family has put on them. So they blame something out of their control. What I’m saying is that it is in their control. You need to do what you want to do regardless of those limitations. And once you do it, you will start a chain reaction. Make it happen and show society that it is possible! Then someone out there will see you and they’ll follow in your footsteps, and things slowly will start to change.”
To help Anousheh continue her quest for advancements in space, visit www.xprize.org/get-involved and learn how you can get involved with the X Prize Foundation.
A Space Odyssey
January 2010
Reach for the stars is more than just a cliché for Anousheh Ansari. On September 18th, 2006 her childhood dream of traveling in space became a reality when she boarded a rocket and left the earth’s atmosphere. As the ship lifted off, Anousheh remembers being awe-struck. “It was a moment I had been waiting for all my life. I started flashing back: remembering myself as a young girl, my journey from Iran to America, how I met my husband, how my life changed by meeting new people, and how it all led to me sitting in that rocket.”
The expedition made her the first female private space explorer and the first astronaut of Iranian descent, but Anousheh’s pioneering days began long before. At sixteen she left Tehran for new frontiers in the United States. In the years that followed she immersed herself in her studies, earning a degree in electronics and computer science from George Mason University followed by a master’s in electrical engineering from George Washington University. After a short stint at a telecommunications company where she met her husband, the two took a leap and invested their entire life savings into the launch of Telecom Technologies, Inc. “We weighed the risks versus the rewards,’ she says as she recalls their bold move, “and we felt that the rewards were worth it, so we did it, and never looked back.”
Three patents later, the company was bought in a merger with Sonus Networks Inc., and the profits from the sale enabled Anousheh to focus on her first love. “Looking to the night skies as a child was the biggest mystery to me. I was always curious to know more about it and to solve the puzzle of what’s out there? How this all came to be?” To get answers to her lifelong questions, she funded the Ansari X Prize, a competition which fueled the progress of space exploration.
In February 2006, Ansari was invited to join the team of the Russian Soyuz TMA9 spacecraft as a commercial passenger. Her acceptance landed her six months of rigorous training. Although she endured zero gravity exercises, simulator training, and a nausea-provoking spinning chair, this adventurer remained excited for her monumental eleven-day journey.
Experiencing such an unparalleled sense of freedom out in space helped Anousheh put things in perspective on her return. “Everything became about the planet. It’s wasn’t about me as an Iranian, or me as an American, or me as a resident of Plano (Texas). It became me as a human living on earth. Now, whatever project I work on, or whatever solution I’m looking for, I view it as something that will help add value globally.” As a space ambassador, Ansari is bringing her empowering message to the public and inspiring youth to follow their ambitions. “I have proven that even the most impossible dream can come true. I hope my life story will persuade young girls and boys around the world to use their imagination, dream big dreams, and go after those dreams.”