What You Always Wanted to Know About Outer Space but Were Afraid to Ask

In space, you can play with your food all you want (even if no one can hear you scream.) The first space blogger ever is Anousheh Ansari from Texas. She's also the first female space tourist and the first Iranian-born person in space. You can read Ansari's blog, typed live from the ISS (Internation Space Station) at http://spaceblog.xprize.org. This blog is the coolest since you can learn about all kinds of touristy things that regular astronauts and cosmonauts don't tell you. If you are planning to take the family to the moon, you might really need tips for dealing with that airsick kid at zero gravity and how the heck you wash your hair when the water keeps floating away.

Ansari may not have started out with the intention of writing a traveler's guide to space, but she sure has the ingredients to write one. (If you want to collaborate after your return from space, Ms. Ansari, I'm not too far away to work with you on this!) In a series of events that would later inspire young girls and starry-eyed adults from around the world, Ansari took charge of her dreams. She was born in 1966 in Mashhad, Iran and she emigrated to the U.S. in 1984. Ansari couldn't speak English upon her arrival, yet within a few years she had not only learned the language but had earned a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering and then a Master's degree! With family members, Ansari founded a telecom company in 1993 and went on to develop that company and then sell it. This made Ansari wealthy enough to generously contribute funds to a variety of organizations and to still fuel her own dreams of hitching a ride into space.

This passionate individual joined the crew of the Soyuz TMA-9 craft that launched from Kazakhstan on September 18, 2006 and carried Ansari to the ISS along with NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. Ansari said by "reaching this dream I've had since childhood, I hope to tangibly demonstrate to young people all over the world that there is no limit to what they can accomplish." 1