Anousheh Ansari waves before the launch of the Soyuz TMA-9 spaceship at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Sept. 18, 2006. Ansari became the fourth self-funded space tourist to visit the International Space Station. (Misha Japaridze/Associated Press)

Anousheh Ansari has worn many hats in her career: CEO of a telecommunications company, entrepreneur and space exploration and scientific sponsor. The 41-year-old Iranian-American is best known around the world, however, as the first female "space tourist" to visit the International Space Station. Ansari flew to the station in a Russian Soyuz rocket on Sept. 18, 2006, and also became the first Iranian in space and the first person to blog from space.

The trip was a fulfillment of a lifelong dream for Ansari and one that video-game pioneer Richard Garriott will get to experience when he makes a similar trip to the space station in fall 2008.

For people without the money to pay the now $30 million US fee to make the trip, the next best space tourism opportunity would be aboard one of Virgin Galactic's suborbital space flights, scheduled to launch as early as 2009, though even those tickets go for about $200,000 US.

Suborbital flight requires much less energy than the orbital flights undertaken by NASA's space shuttles and Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. The International Space Station, for example, orbits at a distance of over 350 kilometres from Earth while suborbital flights reach heights of about 100 kilometres above Earth.

Ansari is no stranger to the suborbital flight industry either: in 2004, she and her family sponsored the Ansari X Prize, a competition to privately build and fly a vehicle capable of suborbital space flight. The contest was won by the SpaceShipOne spacecraft, which provided the blueprint for Virgin's SpaceShipTwo.

The company she runs with her husband, Hamid, and her brother-in-law, Amir, Prodea Systems, also explored a partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd. — the company that brokered her trip to the space station — and the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (FSA) to build a sub-orbital vehicle in Russia. However, Ansari said that project is on hold because "the economics did not work out well."

CBCNews.ca spoke to Ansari about space travel during her recent visit to the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto.

What was it about being on the space station that was so different?

I told everyone when I arrived there that 'I'm home; I've arrived.' It was living your life completely differently because [everything] you do is different, whether it's eating or brushing your teeth or washing your hair. The most mundane things become something completely different.

I remember at the dinner table one night, one of my crew mates asked me to pass the bread, so naturally I picked up the bread, and I handed it to him. He said, 'No, no, no, you don't pass the bread like that. You throw it'. I grew up [hearing] 'Don't play with your food; don't throw food.' Over there, even the simple task of eating bread can become a unique experience.

What was it like to view the Earth from space?

Anousheh Ansari smiles as she speaks on a satellite phone in a medical tent near the Soyuz capsule after landing in northern Kazakhstan on Sept. 29, 2006. Ansari was the first person to publish a blog of her experiences while aboard the space station. (Sergei Remezov/Associated Press)

When you see the Earth in daylight, the background is dark, and you see this sort of glowing, beautiful, coloured planet, and you feel it's alive. You feel a warmth almost from it. So, that's an image that stays with you. Being able to look at the Earth from space and being able to see the stars, they are so bright and without pollution, it was very unique.

We've seen pictures, but what does it smell like and sound like on the space station?

It was a very familiar smell to me inside the space station because there is so much equipment up there. I work in telecommunications technology labs all the time, so the smell and sounds there just resembled being in a technology lab. It smells like electronics. It's not a bad smell, and you certainly get used to it. As for sound, the noise from the fans is constant, too.

What does the average person need to do before considering space flight?

Orbital flights require a lot of preparation and training. For short duration, you really don't suffer … muscle atrophy or any of those types of problems, but [for] long duration flights, you definitely need to think about your health.

That's why I think suborbital space flight is important, because it's a shorter experience, so you don't need as much preparation for it. Basically, anybody can do it. But you need to mentally prepare yourself because there are certain risks and dangers involved. It's a very different kind of experience, and it is physically taxing on your body, so of course it really helps if you're in good health.

Do you think you'll get a chance to go back to space again?

I've got an invitation to go on a Virgin Galactic flight, but I haven't confirmed yet whether I will go. I would certainly love to do it again, especially if I got a chance to go back to the space station now that Columbus [the new European space lab] has been added. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but certainly, I would love to do that.

Curiosity must play a big role in going up the first time. But having gone once, what makes you want to go that second time?

Well if you like chocolate and you eat a chocolate cake, and it tastes so good, you would want to have chocolate cake again. So, I would say it's the same thing. It was such a wonderful experience that I would do it over and over and over again.

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