By Laura Donnelly-Smith
In a speech called “Dare to Dream” Thursday, Anousheh Ansari, M.S. ’92, the fourth private space traveler and the first Muslim woman in space, discussed the perseverance that allowed her to accomplish her lifelong goal of space flight.
Ms. Ansari opened her presentation, which was sponsored by GW’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, with a slide showing a crayon drawing of a rocket ship orbiting a planet. “I drew that picture more than 40 years ago,” she said, explaining how, as a child growing up in Iran, she loved watching “Star Trek”—dubbed in Farsi—and decided at an early age that she wanted to be a science officer aboard the Enterprise. “Imagine my surprise when that didn’t happen,” she joked. “I had to make it happen myself.”
At age 16, Ms. Ansari came to the United States with her family. Immediately after earning a bachelor’s degree in electronics and computer engineering from George Mason University, she took a job in telecommunications at MCI. The company paid her tuition to attend GW and earn a master’s degree in electrical engineering. She later became an entrepreneur, cofounding a telecommunication company, earning multiple U.S. patents and merging her company with Sonus Networks, a telecom infrastructure firm. In 2006, she cofounded Prodea Systems, a digital services company.
Ms. Ansari said that as she worked on her businesses, she began to question her childhood dream of space flight. “I had a successful career in telecommunications as an engineer and as an entrepreneur,” she said. “I said to myself, I’ve done good in my life. I don’t really need to pursue everything I wanted do to as a child. Going to space is one of those dreams that is easier to give up than to work hard at.”
Her fascination with space, however, would not wane. In 2004, Ms. Ansari and her brother-in-law provided a multimillion-dollar donation to the X Prize Foundation to help fund the X Prize—a $10 million award for the first nongovernmental organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft twice within two weeks. The award was renamed the Ansari X Prize in their honor. It was modeled after the Orteig Prize, which encouraged Charles Lindbergh to make his 1927 nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Aerospace designer Burt Rutan won the Ansari X Prize in October 2004 with SpaceShipOne. Watching his success reinforced her desire to someday experience space flight.
“When you really want something bad enough and work hard for it, you can eventually find a way,” she said. “If you give up, even when an opportunity presents itself to you, you might not see it because you’ve stopped looking.”
For Ms. Ansari, that opportunity came by chance in 2006, when Space Adventures, Ltd., offered her the opportunity to train at the Star City space training facility outside Moscow as a backup flier for a flight to the International Space Station aboard the three-passenger Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
“I was a big space nut, so when they said I could spend six months training with the astronauts, I thought it was the opportunity of a lifetime. I didn’t even imagine I would go to space,” she said. But she approached the rigorous training program as if she were a regular crew member, she said, not as an observer. Then, three weeks before the flight, the crew member who had originally planned the flight was medically disqualified because of kidney stones, and Ms. Ansari was offered his spot. She blasted off on Sept. 18, 2006, and spent a total of nine days aboard the International Space Station, 200 miles above the Earth.
“I was in the right place at the right time, but I had also made many choices that put me in that position,” she said.
The experience of space flight was incredible, she said, and spending time on the ISS, seeing the Earth from a distance, and working with astronauts of many different nationalities provided her with a perspective that few people ever gain. In a video she made aboard the ISS and played during the presentation, Ms. Ansari described the view.
“Up here everything is really peaceful. You can’t see borders, you can’t see different races or different religions. All you see is one Earth. … That’s part of the reason I wish more people could experience this firsthand. Talking to the astronauts and cosmonauts, they have a different perspective on life, and how important it is for us to do everything in our power to preserve the only home we have in the universe.”
One of Ms. Ansari’s current interests is the use of space-based solar energy systems, which would allow humans to capture and use the sun’s energy much more efficiently than is currently possible. “It would be the ultimate clean energy,” she said. Other implications for innovation, job creation and commercial success using space-based technologies and materials are almost unlimited, she said. “The biggest hurdle is the cost of getting to orbit,” she said. “Once you’re there, there is solar energy. We need new ways to access space—breakthroughs that drastically reduce cost.”
Ms. Ansari said her best advice to students is to be persistent. “Deal with problems in new ways. You’re never done—there will never be a time when you say, ‘Ok, I’m finished.’ And don’t be afraid of failure. Failure is the best way to learn.”
Collaboration is also imperative, she said. “On the space station, we had people from four different countries speaking different languages, with different religions and beliefs and different personalities. We knew we needed to work together because there was no option to open the door and kick someone out. At some point, people on Earth will realize that too—we need to figure things out together or they won’t work for any of us.”
Liam Cusack, a Clark Scholar and a sophomore mechanical and aerospace engineering student, said that the most resonant part of Ms. Ansari’s speech, for him, was her determination even when the odds that she’d fly in space seemed slim.
“I appreciated what she said about not ever getting to a certain point and thinking you’re done,” Mr. Cusack said.
Ms. Ansari and five other distinguished SEAS alumni or faculty members were also inducted in the GW Engineering Hall of Fame Thursday. The inductees included Nelson A. Carbonell, B.S. ’85, and a member of the GW Board of Trustees; Randolph A. Graves, Jr., PhD ’78; Arnold C. Meltzer, B.S. '58, M.S. '61, PhD '67; Asghar D. Mostafa, B.S. ’81 and M.S. ’82; and L. William Varner, III, B.S. ’73. Complete bios of the winners are available on the SEAS website.