Above The Atmosphere In The Blogsphere

For the last few weeks, I have been an avid reader of Anousheh Ansari’s blog. For those of you who may not be familiar with Ansari (BBC story here), she is the Iranian-born space tourist who just returned from a trip to the International Space Station (ISS). She is the first female space tourist, the first female Muslim in space, and the first to publish a blog from outer space.

I’ve always been a space junkie, so the overlap of Ansari’s trip to the ISS and a great blog was a something that intrigued me and apparently many others. I can hardly remember the previous three space tourists, but Ansari’s trip has caught the imagination of the public. In part, that is probably because she is so unique in the short annals of space tourists, but also, her blog has provided people a vivid daily description of life aboard the International Space Station. In addition to being a good writer, her recent blog entiries have been rich in YouTube segments giving readers/viewers an initmate first-person look at her outer space experiences.

Ansari’s Alexa rankings skyrocketed in the last few weeks as traditional news, word-of-mouth activity, and the Web 2.0 buzz machine pointed to Ansari and her blog.

Ansari’s estimated $20 million out-of-pocket ticket price to space bought her the experience of a lifetime, and it also launched her quickly and dramatically into the world spotlight.