Anousheh Ansari: If people can see Earth from up here, see it without...

I would spend hours and hours gazing at the stars and wondering, what's out there? Sometimes I wondered if maybe there was another girl like me on another planet some place gazing at the stars and thinking about the same things.

Anousheh Ansari

girl stars thinking

I hope to inspire everyone - especially young people, women, and young girls all over the world, and in Middle Eastern countries that do not provide women with the same opportunities as men - to not give up their dreams and to pursue them.

Anousheh Ansari

girl dream country

Find something you enjoy and love and you're passionate about. And then dedicate all you've got to make it a success. And if you have those two things, I think with your passion and dedication, there is nothing that you cannot accomplish.

Anousheh Ansari

dedication passion thinking

I'm an explorer by nature, and being an entrepreneur allows me to explore new opportunities and technologies. And that's the best part of it.

Anousheh Ansari

entrepreneur technology opportunity

I believe seeing earth a small blue ball in the vast dark ocean of space, gives you a new perspective on life and what is important. You can see how small we are as compared to the universe and how fragile our lives are.

Anousheh Ansari

ocean dark believe

My advice to everyone is find something that you love to do and you are passionate about. Because if you're not passionate about something, it's very difficult to be dedicated to it.

Anousheh Ansari

dedicated passionate advice

Being an entrepreneur means that you are sort of inventing something new. You're giving birth to a company. You're giving birth to a new product, a new service. And that's always exciting.

Anousheh Ansari

entrepreneur giving mean

One of the most memorable moments was when I first saw earth because I had seen many pictures, many videos of earth from space, and being able to see that with my own eyes had a completely different effect, and sort of almost sensing life emanating from our planet in the dark background of the space, it was a really memorable experience.

Anousheh Ansari

eye dark memorable

Global education is something that is important for me. Because I believe that our future is going to be built by our young generation.

Anousheh Ansari

young-generation important believe

It is very rewarding when you see your employees happy and excited about the success of the company. When you introduce something new, a product in the world that gets really high marks and everyone loves using it and raves about it. You will feel very good about it.

Anousheh Ansari

rave excited world

I always was fascinated by space and always wanted to learn more about it and wanted to experience it first hand by flying into space. I don't know how it began or where it began. Maybe I was born with it. Maybe it's in my genes.

Anousheh Ansari

flying space hands

The biggest influence in my life has been by husband, who is also my partner in the business. We started our companies together, and he's always been there encouraging me to take on new challenges in my life. And when I do take them on, he's right beside me supporting and helping me through all the difficult time.

Anousheh Ansari

husband challenges together

I believe space exploration is an absolute necessity for the survival of human race.

Anousheh Ansari

space race believe

I think women in Iran are very resilient and I am very proud of all the Iranian women that are standing up for their rights and speaking out, and I hope that they will succeed and I am glad the international community is paying attention and supporting them as well.

Anousheh Ansari

community attention thinking

One of the coolest things with the Internet is that it is used by the entire population - as part of education and just on a daily basis for communication. I think that has been one of the coolest technologies that has been developed.

Anousheh Ansari

communication technology thinking

Being an immigrant and staring life over, you learn to be a survivor and how to face your challenges and basically overcome them. And that has been a great skill set that I've developed and has helped me in my career.

Anousheh Ansari

careers skills challenges

Space travel is a dream for many men and women. I think my trip will be perceived differently by different genders because for women, a lot of time, not only space travel, it's not accessible to everyone, but is even less accessible to women, there are a lot more barriers for them especially if they live in countries where things like space travel, engineering, any science and technology-related field would be considered a more male-dominated field. And so I want to show them that there is nothing preventing woman, or making them less qualified to be involved in any of these fields.

Anousheh Ansari

dream men country

You have to find things that are accessible and doable in your busy life and try to fit some time in your schedule to just have time to yourself and be able to recoup and refocus.

Anousheh Ansari

schedules able trying

I always loved science and math growing up. I was born in Iran; I grew up there and then came to the United States when I was about 16 years old. And I thought that this was my opportunity to get involved with something really cool and great.

Anousheh Ansari

growing-up math opportunity

Technology doesn't have to be difficult to use or complicated. I feel technology is something that's there to make your life easier not more difficult.

Anousheh Ansari

technology complicated use

If people can see Earth from up here, see it without those borders, see it without any differences in race or religion, they would have a completely different perspective. Because when you see it from that angle, you cannot think of your home or your country. All you can see is one Earth...