Ansari X Prize
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The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight.
The winning spaceplane SpaceShipOne being carried below its launch vehicle White Knight
Representatives of the X Prize Foundation symbolically presented the ten million dollar prize to Burt Rutan and Paul Allen of Mojave Aerospace Ventures on November 6, 2004. The Ansari X Prize trophy is on the left.
SpaceShipOne Flight 16P taxi pre launch
Mike Melvill and Burt Rutan speak to the media after the first flight into space
Anousheh Ansari
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Anousheh Ansari is an Iranian American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first Iranian in space. Ansari was the fourth overall self-funded space tourist, and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station. Her memoir, My Dream of Stars, co-written with Homer Hickam, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2010.
Ansari holds a plant grown in the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station.
The Crew of Soyuz TMA-9: Astronaut Michael E. Lopez-Alegria (left), Anousheh Ansari (middle) and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan on Sept. 5, 2006
Anousheh Ansari at AI for Good Global Summit (2018)