Woman's Space Adventure Comes at a Pivotal Time

The unfortunate turn of events for would-be Japanese 'space tourist' Daisuke Enomoto, who failed a critical preflight physical, likely puts American entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari into the paying-passenger seat on September's Russian Soyuz flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Mrs. Ansari and her husband are already known in the space community for their prime sponsorship of the Ansari X_Prize. The prize was won by Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne in 2004 for demonstrating a privately developed suborbital spaceflight capability.

It seems to me kind of Providential that Mrs. Ansari would fly at this time. The Ansaris emigrated from Iran to America, and the official Iranian news agency matter-of-factly reported the story today. Her flight could be a real inspiration to the Iranian people, especially Iranian women, defying the Islamofascist idea of women's place in society. (What? No bag over her head!) This could pose an interesting challenge to Mahmoud & the Mullahs, especially as they continue their confrontation with the world over Iran's nuclear weapons development program