Nearly three decades later, Ansari’s childhood fantasies are about to come true as she prepares to become the first female space tourist.

Now a multi-millionaire in the United States, Ansari, 39, who made her fortune from telecommunications software, has secured a flight in a Russian Soyuz rocket to the international space station 220 miles above Earth.

“It would be nice to get outside the planet and see the universe for what it really is,” she said.

Earlier this year Ansari passed stringent medical tests and spent weeks in training at Star City, the space centre outside Moscow that has prepared every Russian cosmonaut since Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space in 1961.

She is scheduled to fly next year but could make the trip — which will cost her about £10m — later this year if a Japanese businessman who is due to become the next space tourist drops out.

“Ansari expressed an interest to fly aboard one of our craft late last year. She’s very passionate about space,” said Sergei Kostenko of Space Adventures, a US-based space travel company that has a contract with the Russian space agency to fly tourists.

“She came to Moscow for preliminary talks, passed the medical tests in February and has been studying in Star City since April. She’s been living there most of the time. She’s thrilled and very much looking forward to the year ahead.”

Female astronauts are no longer rare, especially in America. But Ansari — who has endured arduous G-force tests and has been taught to fire a gun to protect her from wild animals in case of an emergency landing in Russia’s wild steppes — will be the first woman to pay for the privilege.

With a fortune of several hundred million dollars, she can easily afford the fare, which works out at nearly £50,000 a mile.

Ansari will be following a trail blazed by Dennis Tito, a Californian tycoon who became the first space tourist in 2001. In his wake came Mark Shuttleworth, a dashing young South African internet millionaire who has since made London his home. The two pioneers were followed by Gregory Olsen, an American businessman who flew to the international space station last year.

No other tourist has done more to develop commercial space travel than Ansari, however. She recently signed a contract with Space Adventures and the Russians to develop a fleet of sub-orbital spaceships for commercial use.

“They have proved there is a market for space tourism by having been the first company to fly a private citizen into space,” she said.

She also donated heavily towards a £5m cash prize — afterwards named the Ansari X prize in her honour — won by SpaceShipOne, which two years ago launched the first manned space flight funded by private investors.

However, it is in the more earthly field of female liberation that Ansari’s journey of discovery could have the greatest impact, particularly in Iran where many women are treated as second-class citizens.

“Not many women in Iran have a chance to develop a top-flight business career,” said Kamal Nazeri, an Iranian businessman. “To be the first Iranian woman in space is a breakthrough which will stimulate many to seek to improve their lives.”

Ansari was 12 when the Shah of Iran fell in 1979. Her father lost his job when the wine merchants’ business he managed was closed by the authorities.

At 17 and speaking little English, she moved to America, where she earned a degree in electrical engineering and met her husband and business partner Hamid, 42.

In 1993 the couple went into business with $50,000. After eight years Telecom Technologies was valued at more than $600m. They later sold it.

Asked about her talent for risk-taking, Ansari said: “It’s like being thrown into the sea. You can either tread water to stay afloat or focus all your energy on moving forward and swim to shore. I learnt to deal with problems as they came along, to find solutions and not panic.”

At 35 Ansari was one of only two women to be featured in a Fortune magazine list of America’s 40 most successful business figures under the age of 40. The magazine described her as “the boldest newcomer”.

The gulf between Ansari and Tehran’s conservative regime could hardly be wider than the new frontiers of space. As she is poised to blast off, Iranian legislators opposed to “decadent” programmes from the West are warning every citizen with a satellite dish that they could be arrested and fined more than £2,500.

Explore World News

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Transcript: interview between Nouri al-Maliki and The Times
• Golden Gate gets anti-suicide safety net
• World of Warcraft fans unite for pilgrimage