9.28.2006
Anousheh's Apple
Not easy to pick a favorite item from all the photos, blog messages, news articles, media reports and global coverage in connection with Anousheh Ansari's historic visit to the International Space Station, but this little video is a top contender: the Iranian-born American businesswoman, now pioneering space explorer, lovingly tossing and spinning an apple in weightlessness while talking poetically about sleeping and dreaming in space and looking up close at the Milky Way. Priceless.And really, what were the chances a Muslim female from a hard-line Islamic state would one day sit with four male astronauts and smile down on our beleaguered planet from her seat -- which she bought with her own hard-earned millions -- on an orbiting space station? Kinda gives you hope for humankind's future. (Alas, other headlines today are not so uplifting.)
Here is the fearless, high-flying, apple-pie smiling, stargazing chairman and co-founder of Prodea Systems, thanking her supporters on Earth.
But really, Anousheh. Thank you ;).
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"Dream, dream big. Don't let anyone tell you that your dreams are impossible. Don't ever give up on it and make sure you are thinking freely and letting your imagination go. Don't have any boundaries and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If you believe in that, if you pursue it, you will get to what you want inside your heart. And I promise you that." -- Anousheh Ansari, Sept. 25, 2006
