Anousheh Ansari is still writing posts on her space blog, and plans to continue to do so during her stay on the ISS. MSNBC reports that such space blogging, as well as planned podcasts from the station, won’t come cheap: the data/phone link costs $250,000. The X Prize Foundation is picking up the tab for the link (and is also hosting the blog); maybe they can recoup that by selling a lot of t-shirts at the X Prize Cup next month. A lot of t-shirts.

WFAA-TV in Dallas reports on a minor controversy associated with the flight, namely Ansari’s original plans to wear both the Iranian and US flags on her spacesuit. According to the report, both NASA and Roskosmos officials forbade Ansari from wearing an Iranian flag patch, citing growing tensions about Iran’s nuclear program. The agencies also wanted Ansari to cover the Iranian colors visible in her mission patch; that is “still up in the air.”

RSC Energia published some photos taken Wednesday during the crew’s inspection of their spacecraft and a press conference. In one photo a US flag patch, and only that, is visible on Ansari’s left sleeve. In another photo Ansari’s mission patch is visible on the right breast of her overalls; it doesn’t appear that the Iranian flag colors on it have been covered up.

The UK Space Biomedicine Group is holding is 3rd Space Medicine Conference on September 30-October 1 at the National Space Centre in Leicester. The penultimate panel of the conference, according to the program, will focus on “medical issues for space tourism”. The featured speakers include a doctor working for Virgin Galactic, Dr. Julia Tizard, and a representative from Wyle Labs, which recently established a new business unit focusing on space tourism services.

• Ansari talks about training with the Expedition 14 backup crew, speaking warmly about Peggy Whitson and Yuri Malenchenko.
• The German news agency DPA, meanwhile, has a somewhat odd, even mildly sexist article about Ansari: “Lipstick to hand, womankind will make another giant cosmic leap Monday,” the article starts, then goes on to discuss the handpicked shade of blue for her overalls and the cosmetics she’ll take with her to the ISS.

RIA Novosti reports that a deputy in the Russian Duma has proposed that Russia send pop singer Madonna on a trip to the International Space Station. Alexei Mitrofanov, described as a “flamboyant lawmaker from the ultra-nationalist LDPR party” said that the Russian space agency Roskosmos should act to send Madonna on a 2008 flight, apparently acting on a comment reportedly made by Madonna, in Moscow this week for a concern, that she would like to fly to space. Why 2008? “It would be a serious event, considering the TV coverage and the fact that it will coincide with [presidential] elections in the United States and Russia,” Mitrofanov said. The only remaining question: one way or round trip?

Update 9/14 7am: While the Russian Duma did not look favorably on Mitrofanov’s proposal, the head of Roskosmos said he’s be happy to fly Madonna to the ISS, although she would have to wait until 2009 because seats on earlier flights are already accounted for. Still a mystery, though, is exactly what Madonna said during her Russian visit that kicked off this hullabaloo.

A newspaper in upstate New York, the Amherst Times, ran a New York Times article about Anousheh Ansari. Problem is, they made a typo in the headline: “SHE DREAMED OF THE SARS; NOW SHE’LL ALMOST TOUCH THEM”. While it’s entirely possible that she has dreamed of SARS, it’s unlikely she’ll have any chance to make contact with the disease (even if she wanted to) during her trip.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Anousheh Ansari’s flight is approaching, so the media coverage is ramping up:

First, though, something important: Tuesday is her 40th birthday, and she got birthday greetings, from, among others, Roskosmos head Anatoly Perminov, who “wished her a happy birthday and success in carrying out the flight program and good luck,” according to Interfax.

As you may already know, Ansari has her own web site, where she calls herself “First Female Private Space Explorer & Space Ambassador”. She also has a blog, where her latest entry describes her birthday, spent in quarantine in advance of her flight. Lots of flowers, but limitations on what she can do: “I think I know how Martha Stewart felt in her minimum security prison.”

Ansari doesn’t plan to lounge around the station, looking out the window while listening to music: she’s agreed to be a test subject for four ESA experiments during her stay on the ISS, including studies of radiation effects, bacteria, anemia, and lower back pain.

Finally, Alan Boyle has an extensive interview with Ansari about her upcoming flight, touching on a wide range of issues. About her “ambassador” role: “The most important part of my role as an ambassador is to educate everyone about space and the importance of space, and space exploration and space sciences. One way I imagine doing this through my trip is by recording every second of my experiences, either through video, pictures or audio.” (Well, not every second, we hope; there is that whole space toilet thing we can probably skip.) Ansari also talks about her financial support of Space Adventures’ development of the Explorer suborbital vehicle for space tourism, declining to be pinned down to a start date other than that they “are shooting for” two to three years from now. She also states that the medical condition that grounded Daisuke Enomoto (and thus giving her a chance to fly) is apparently treatable, allowing him another chance to fly at some point in the future.

The musician Moby has made it clear he’s had an interest in space, whether it’s his choice of album art and song titles or visits to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Now Moby appears ready to take that giant leap: he told MTV UK that he’s been offered a suborbital ride by Virgin Galactic, in part because he used to be signed to a Virgin-owned label. “So when he [Richard Branson] was coming up with Virgin Galactic he approached people to say, ‘Would you have any interest in going into outer space?’,” Moby said. “And I, of course, said yes.”

In a little less than a week Anousheh Ansari is scheduled to head to the ISS on a Soyuz taxi flight. A sampling of the coverage:

• The New York Times offers a basic overview of her interest in space, dating back to her childhood in Iran, and the work supporting the X Prize and the Space Adventures’ suborbital vehicle development.
• George Washington Univ. claims her as an alumna; she got a masters in EE there in 1992.
• Ansari is profiled by the Electric New Paper in Singapore, where her husband gently pokes fun at her interest in space: “She must have ‘space DNA’ and sometimes I wonder if she is trying to find her way back home (space).”
• Unfortunately for ham radio operators, Ansari will not be using the amateur radio on the ISS.

So what do you do after you take a trip to space? How about take on the world’s largest software company? That’s the gist of a Reuters article about Mark Shuttleworth, the second tourist to visit the ISS, back in 2002. Shuttleworth is now backing a Linux distribution called Ubuntu that he hopes can win out over Microsoft, particularly in developing regions like Africa. (It’s not clear what prompted this particular article, since Shuttleworth has been involved with Ubuntu for some time.) What is most interesting about the article is that leads off by noting Shuttleworth’s 2002 flight, but after the second paragraph doesn’t mention it again.

RIA Novosti reported Thursday that former Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi has started training for his flight to the ISS. While Space Adventures has not announced a date for Simonyi’s flight, the RIA Novosti report stated that Simonyi would be training for a flight to the ISS in 2007. Presumably this will be in March 2007, since the available seat on the September 2007 flight will be taken by a Malaysian guest cosmonaut (unless the international partners free up a seat by going back to the shuttle to rotate station crews); assuming a six-month training cycle now would be the time to start for a March flight.

The article also contrasts Simonyi with former space tourist candidate Daisuke “Dice-K” Enomoto: a source told RIA Novosti that Simonyi “was remarkably different in his attitude to the flight from Daisuke Enomoto, a Japanese businessman who had failed his medical and appeared to be embroiled in a financial scandal in his homeland.”

Enomoto’s spot on this month’s Soyuz flight was filled by another tourist, Anousheh Ansari; will Simonyi have a similar backup? The article suggests we’ll know soon. “The training center representative said it would be clear in 10 days whether Simonyi would have a backup. ‘The main thing is that he wants to learn more than is taught during the reduced ‘tourist’ course, which does him credit,’ he said.”