Posted on 04/05/2006 10:48:06 AM PDT by anymouse
Virgin Galactic and Virgin Atlantic worked together to celebrate the inaugural VAA flight to Dubai and held a joint Press Conference on 29th March 2006.
Virgin Galactic was proud to introduce our first Founder from Dubai – Namira Salim. As a member of the exclusive Virgin Galactic Founders Club - the first 100 space travellers to sign up in full to a flight on Virgin Galactic, when commercial operations commence in 2008/9 - Namira will be a pioneer for all of those who come after. Our Founders will participate in the birth of this incredible new industry and Virgin Galactic is delighted to welcome Namira on board.
Namira was born with a dream, a dream she strongly believes in. Since early childhood, she was convinced that commercial space travel would become a possibility in her lifetime. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has made this a reality for her and other Founders.
Stephen Attenborough , Head of Astronaut Relations, commented:
“Namira Salim is not only a talented and accomplished artist, but someone who has long dreamt of experiencing the magic of space for herself. We are delighted to help her to realise that dream and to welcome her as a Virgin Galactic Founder. We are especially pleased to be able to make this announcement in Namira’s home country of Dubai and look forward to many others from the region following in her footsteps”
Oh no, the arabs are coming from space! /sarcasm
And a woman muslim at that. From burka to space suit. One giant leap for muslim women.
Sen. Shumer and Clinton are deeply saddened. :)
So must be the mullahs. :)
space tourism ping.
Dubai ping! Now she's got something to look forward to.
Cindie
So do I, our company is working on an agreement to do the training for Virgin Galactic customers : )
I wonder how many muslim laws space travel violates?
They better be careful the astronaut does not self-detonate and blow up all outer space.
True story: a Saudi prince once flew on the Space Shuttle, and they were very concerned about the fact that Muslims are supposed to pray 5 times between sunup and sundown.
In Shuttle orbits, of course, sunup and sundown occur once every 90 minutes -- and the concern was that the Prince would have to spend almost all day praying (16 revs/day = 80 prayer sessions.)
Another difficulty was finding "east" so that he could pray to Mecca.
Some imam decided he could pray by wall-clock time, as opposed to solar time. I don't recall what they did about facing Mecca.
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