SAO News

When Swinburne Astronomy Online was launched world-wide in 2000, we had no idea that in 2006 one of our students would be launched into orbit! SAO Masters students Anousheh Ansari is the world's first female space tourist. On Monday 18 September, Anousheh was part of the Soyuz TMA-9 mission which launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan en route to the International Space Station (ISS). Anousheh is visiting the ISS for ten days and return to Earth with the ISS-13 Expedition crew.

Anousheh did her astronaut training in May 2006 (while studying the SAO units Exploring the Solar System and Studies in Space Exploration!) off the coast of Sevastopol in the Black Sea. Part of this training involved simulations of a splashdown landing in a body of water.


Anousheh's astronaut training in the Black Sea

Swinburne Spaceworks animation of the International Space Station

The space tourism company, Space Adventures, which is sending Anousheh to the ISS, was co-founded by another SAO Masters student - Mike McDowell. As well as being chairman of the board of Space Adventures, Mike is the founder of Deep Ocean Expeditions and has done numerous deep sea vent dives and has graciously provided SAO with images for our astrobiology course. Mike and his son have just returned to Sydney from their trip to Kazakhstan where they briefly met with Anousheh (who was behind a glass screen but was smiling confidently) and watched the launch which went flawlessly. He promises to send us footage of the launch as soon as he can.

Anousheh commenced her Master of Science (Astronomy) in 2005 and is currently on leave for obvious reasons! Mike commenced his Masters in 2002 and is currently enrolled in Computational Astrophysics. He assures us that he'll be running his numerical simulations from various hotels while on his trip to Kazakhstan... That's what we call dedication!

For more details, visit:

• Anousheh Ansari
• Anousheh's Space Blog
• Prodea Systems
• Space Adventures

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