Russian craft carrying 1st female tourist blasts off

A Russian Soyuz spaceship carrying the world's first female space tourist and a two-man crew of the International Space Station (ISS) lifted off on Monday from its launch pad in the Kazakh steppe.

Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur slated to be the first female space tourist, Anousheh Ansari, center rear, poses for a photo with her husband Hamid, mother, right, and sister, left, no names given, during a meeting marking the final preparations for the latest launch to the international space station at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006.

Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur slated to be the first female space tourist, Anousheh Ansari, touches a glass wall which separates her from her mother Sept. 17, 2006.