Collegiate Times

Q: How were you feeling at the final countdown?

A: I thought I was dreaming. I couldn't believe that it was really happening. I was sitting there and I was in my suit and the countdown started. I thought, 'am I going to just wake up and this will all be over?' It was very, very exciting and it's hard to describe the feeling. I had all these images in my head of what I had done to get to this point, and of course I was thinking about my loved ones and everyone who had helped me get there, and it was just a feeling of pure joy and excitement.

Q: You have already accomplished so much; what else do you wish to accomplish in the future?

A: There are two passions I am pursuing right now. One is education. I believe that we need a lot of focus on changing the way we educate our young all over the world. Specifically, I want to encourage people to look at how they can help flourish the imagination in our children and let them carry that imagination with them through adulthood. As the children go through the school system now, we slowly mange to suck that imagination out of them. I think in order for us to succeed and be able to build the next generation of technology, we need a lot of imagination and to think outside the box and come up with radical solutions. If children are not able to think this way, then we are not going to have the right sources. My other passion is that after going to space and seeing that there are really no borders separating us, I want to convey the message that we are all just citizens of planet Earth and we should look at it that way. We should not try to draw lines and separate ourselves and think that that will not affect us because it does. You can see that from space. We are all citizens of this planet.

Anousheh Ansari's visit was sponsored by the Iranian Society at Virginia Tech, the College of Engineering, College of Science, Center for Vehicle Systems and Safety, and the departments of mechanical, aerospace, ocean, and biological systems engineering.

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