From the London Times:

As a young girl in Iran, Anousheh Ansari would stare in wonder at the stars and dream of joining them in the blackness of space. Yesterday, a week after her 40th birthday, she made her dream come true. At an estimated cost of $20 million (£11 million), Mrs Ansari became the first woman space tourist after blasting off in a Russian Soyuz rocket from Star City in Kazakhstan. As the first Iranian-born astronaut was circling Earth last night, her remarkable journey from Tehran to the International Space Station was being hailed also as evidence of the continued power of another dream: the American one. Mrs Ansari was 16 when her family emigrated in 1984 as the Islamic Revolution in Iran was at its peak and girls faced a strictly limited future. Her parents said that they wanted her to be able to pursue her passion for science. She arrived speaking only French and Farsi, became an American citizen and quickly immersed herself in the study of electronics….

A story, I think, that rather speaks for itself.