Only in America. what a story.
>An American who fled Iran’s Islamic revolution two decades ago has fulfilled a childhood dream when she became the first woman to pay for her own journey into space.
She fled Iran in 1984, aged 16, after the country’s radical Islamic regime closed down the wine company where her father was a senior executive.
Although she spoke no English when she arrived in the United States, she secured two degrees within five years, took out a loan to start a software firm with her husband in her 20s and then sold it for $500 million.
At her last press conference before lift off she spoke of how she had been obsessed with space since she was a girl.
Ms Ansari provoked a brief row when she announced she wanted to wear the Stars and Stripes on one sleeve of her space suit and, to inspire women in the country of her birth, the Iranian flag on the other.
She backed down under pressure from the US and Russian governments and promised to refrain from making political statements while in orbit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/18/nspacetourist.xml
>An American who fled Iran’s Islamic revolution two decades ago has fulfilled a childhood dream when she became the first woman to pay for her own journey into space.
She fled Iran in 1984, aged 16, after the country’s radical Islamic regime closed down the wine company where her father was a senior executive.
Although she spoke no English when she arrived in the United States, she secured two degrees within five years, took out a loan to start a software firm with her husband in her 20s and then sold it for $500 million.
At her last press conference before lift off she spoke of how she had been obsessed with space since she was a girl.
Ms Ansari provoked a brief row when she announced she wanted to wear the Stars and Stripes on one sleeve of her space suit and, to inspire women in the country of her birth, the Iranian flag on the other.
She backed down under pressure from the US and Russian governments and promised to refrain from making political statements while in orbit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/18/nspacetourist.xml
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