What’s a space tourist?

Most of the media’s coverage about Anousheh Ansari’s upcoming flight to the ISS has billed her as the first female space tourist. Or is she? In a NASA Watch entry (perhaps more accurately described as a rant against the “hyping” of her flight), Keith Cowing says no: “The U.K.’s Helen Sharman was the first female […]

Another female space tourist

While Anousheh Ansari has been billed as the first female space tourist and the first Iranian-born person to fly in space, The Peninsula newspaper in Qatar profiles another prospective space traveler from that region of the world: Pakistani artist Namira Salim, who is one of Virgin Galactic’s founders. She is described in the article as […]

Pre-launch notes

Some various items about Anousheh Ansari and her upcoming flight:

On his blog, MSNBC’s Alan Boyle touches upon the sensitive issue of religion and space, including the possibility that she will be able to observe the new moon from the ISS a day earlier than observers on the ground, triggering an early start to the […]

Ansari wins approval from her crewmates

An Interfax article today reports that Anousheh Ansari’s crewmates on the Soyuz launching late tonight, Michael Lopez-Alegria and Mikhail Tyurin, are impressed with her “professionalism”, as Tyurin put it, during her pre-flight training. “She has easily become part of the crew. One could think we’d been working for years together,” Tyurin added. An interesting comment […]

Some better news from Las Cruces

The Las Cruces Sun-News reports that the city council will consider a proposal Monday to sell nearly 170 acres (68 hectares) of land near the city’s airport to the Rocket Racing League for $2.3 million. The RRL would also get right of first refusal on an additional 175 acres by the airport as well. The […]

Wild wild west?

Something to tuck away in the back of your mind if you’re thinking of heading to Las Cruces in about a month for the X Prize Cup: Two anonymous letters, including one sent to the local newspaper, the Sun-News, threatened random shootings of residents unless city officials pay a ransom. Law enforcement officials are taking […]