It’s been a quiet couple of days since Anousheh Ansari’s launch, since she’s had limited communications opportunities while the Soyuz spacecraft she’s flying in is in transit to the ISS. There are a couple items of note:

• One communications opportunity she did have was a rare three-way hookup between the ISS, Soyuz, and the shuttle Atlantis. Despite the high-flying setup, the conversation was pretty banal, limited to some basic greetings and joking among the astronauts. The CBS News/Spaceflight Now account added that Ansari, along with astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, are suffering from a bit of space sickness but appeared to be in high spirits in the conversation.
• An AFP article notes the varying reactions in the Iranian media to Ansari’s flight. One newspaper criticized state-run TV for focusing too much attention on Ansari, claiming that it “has aroused people’s astonishment”. Another newspaper, though, called her flight “a source of pride for all Iranians.”
• With Ansari pretty much incommunicado at the moment, her blog is featuring a YouTube video of her launch and some comments by Peter Diamandis.

While I’m thinking of it, I’ll mention a couple of personal spaceflight-related articles published yesterday in The Space Review:

• Alex Howerton talks about the importance of simulation and training for future commercial passengers. Such training, he believes, can help people get used to the different physical sensations of such a flight, so they’re not taken by surprise on the actual flight itself.
• I expanded a full-fledged article about the use of the term. As I note, for the time being, for better or worse, we’re stuck with the term “space tourist” whether or not such people act like, or consider themselves to be, tourists.