The posts in this weblog are mainly about history, heritage, language, art, and culture of Persia (that is named Iran since 1934). Persia is, therefore, equal to Iran, and Persian is equal to Iranian. Note that Persian is a nationality not an ethnicity. Pars (or Fars) is the major ethnicity in Persia but there are also Persian Kurds or Arabs. Similarly, the official language in Persia is Persian (Farsi is the local name and may not be used internationally). For more details please read my posts.
Anousheh Ansari, the first Persian astronaut
* Also available in Persian language
..... and the first Persian astronaut!
This is something to be proud of. Anousheh Ansari will be the first Persian astronaut, and the first female space tourist. On 14th of September this year, she will go for a 10 days trip to the space, together with two other astronauts from Russia and the US. Before her, two Americans and one South African person have done such a trip as space tourists.
Anousheh Ansari, who is a Persian Azeri (Turk), is born in Tehran and immigrated to the US when she was 16. She received her master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science at George Washington University. She is a co-founder of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI), which she sold later. Anousheh was listed in
Fortune magazine's "40 under 40" list in 2001 and honored by Working Woman magazine as the winner of the 2000 National Entrepreneurial Excellence award.
Two years ago, along with her brother-in-law Amir Ansari, she made a multi-million dollar contribution to the X-Prize foundation. The X-Prize was officially renamed the
Ansari X Prize in honour of their donation.
Read the detailed story from
CBS News. If you like, have a look at the
Anousheh Ansari's page in Wikipedia. There you can find some interesting links to
her personal blog, and also to the news of her achievements that are published in various websites.
Labels: Astronomy, Persian heritage