Anousheh Ansari may want to reconsider her upcoming trip:

Zvezda has manufactured seats, suits and other personal equipment for every single of Soviet cosmonauts, including Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova who was the first woman to fly to space. Ansari as any other female member of a Soyuz-TMA crew requires a different bowl for disembowelment, Pozdnyakov. "This equipment is fit for answering both kinds of calls of the nature," Pozdnyakov told Space.com in an interview on Thursday.

[Emphasis mine--Via emailer Adrian Reilly]

[Update at noon]

This part was cute, too:

A woman's organism is different, that's why we need to modify some of the life systems in the capsule...

It sure is. Vive la difference!

Looks like they need to work on their PR strategy. The article also mentions another potential passenger that couldn't pass the health requirements. Announcing to the world that someone is signed up to fly and then announcing that they didn't pass the health requirements is very uncool.

I didn't know the Islamists had a space program.

A woman's organism is different, that's why we need to modify some of the life systems in the capsule...

Wonder how many scientist and how much money was spent to figure that one out.

If Ms. Ansari is an Islamist (she is Iranian, I admit) then we in the West are in big trouble.

Didn't Rand post something about over-reacting?

I'm thinking that it must be sticking in the craw of the ruling class in Iran that the first Iranian in space is (a) a woman (b) who lives in America (c) who dresses like a westerner (d) who paid her own way into space. I wonder if there is any mention at all in Iran of her trip to space.

Didn't Rand post something about over-reacting?

You mean like, taking seriously an obvious example of snark?

Yo Adrian!

If you see this message, send me a line at
james"dawt"muncy@polispace"dawt"com

- Jim

Hello Ed Minchau, I asked my parents (in Iran) and they didn't know about it. Probably the news was not interesting in the eyes of mullahs.

"A woman's organism is different...that's why we need to modify some of the..shock-absorbing..personal female..lingerie, working suit, shorts and T-shirts. This equipment is fit for ... A woman's organism. A woman's organism .... [is a] procedure which should not take too long and they might be already done by now."

Wow, talk about lightin' the motors before erecting the rocket ship. If there is ever a space agency eager to get into space sex research it sounds like these guys are chompin at the bit so to speak.