When Anousheh Ansari was a little girl in Tehran, she used to sleep on her family's balcony, and look up at the stars, twinkling over Mt. Damavand. Her family was having tough times: her parent's marriage was breaking up, while Iran's clerical revolution had closed her school, and seemingly ended her dream of becoming a scientist. The stars were Anousheh Ansari's refuge.

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Anousheh Ansari became the first Muslim female to blast into space in 2006.

Anousheh Ansari

Anousheh Ansari became the first Muslim female to blast into space in 2006.

She and her family were able to get out of Iran and come to the United States. She studied electrical engineering and computer science. She and her husband, Hamid, reconditioned and sold used cars, but eventually founded a telecom company that made them a fortune. And in 2006, Anoush Ansari bought a ticket to the stars: she got a seat on a Soyuz mission, and became the first self-funded woman to fly on the International Space Station, and the first Muslim woman in outer space.

But don't call her a space tourist. She's not a fan of that label.

"You got through the same training as the astronauts, so I don't think it's a fair terminology," she told Scott this week.

While in space, she conducted experiments, kept a blog, and sent videos back to earth. Here, she calls her trip a "spiritual" experience:

Ansari and her family are the sponsors the Ansari X-Prize, a competition that offered ten million dollars to the first non-government group to launch a craft into space twice in two weeks.

It is hard to believe I have been in public broadcasting for twenty years. I began in public radio as a reporter at KUNM in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1991 and began working at NPR News in 1993, after attending a diversity initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington D.C. At the time, NPR Producer Doug Mitchell was on the Advisory Board and had seen my application. Doug insisted I be given a chance.

I took a risk and moved to Washington from Albuquerque in June of 1993 with the assurance of two weeks' worth of temp work on Weekend Edition Saturday. The following year, Robert Malesky of Weekend Edition Sunday hired me as a Production Assistant.

For the next few years, I roamed the NPR Headquarters, like a novice naqqal (Persian storyteller) in awe of everyone around me. Watching Producers Cindy Carpien, Walter Ray Watson, Ned Wharton and Fred Wasser in action reminded me of the carpet weavers I had seen in Iran designing an intricate Persian carpet. The way the producers listened for sound, the way they made edit marks on analog tape, rocking the tape back and forth ever so conscious of the rhythm and narrative of the story they were editing, was simply a marvel to listen to and captivating to watch.

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Davar Ardalan, Liane Hansen, Daniel Schorr, and Scott Simon at Dan Schorr's birthday party.

NPR

Davar Ardalan, Liane Hansen, Daniel Schorr, and Scott Simon at Dan Schorr's birthday party.

Over time, I mastered the rhythm of sound in the essence of the stories I produced. I learned from my architect father that images along with SOUND activate the sublime. He would say Stravinsky does it but so does a shepherd with his reed flute by the power of breathing life or his soul into his instrument. I loved the idea of sculpting sound images and fortifying the sense of birth and rebirth through sound.

It was at NPR that the creative conscience within me actualized. Working with Liane Hansen, Scott Simon, Jacki Lyden, Daniel Zwerdling, Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne, I spent countless days and nights logging tape, listening back to interviews, editing sound files, being a skeptic, testing, experimenting, failing sometimes and getting right back up and trying again. From them I have learned to be a tenacious journalist and to listen for the mystery of a story. Eventually, no story for me was simple, it had to have an arch, a reason for being, a narrative, a sound portrait of that slice of life.

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Senior Producer Ned Wharton, Host Liane Hansen, and Davar Ardalan on assignment in Egypt.

NPR

Senior Producer Ned Wharton, Host Liane Hansen, and Davar Ardalan on assignment in Egypt.

As many of you know, Weekend Edition has been on Twitter for more than a year. We've now come up with some tips on how we use the social networking site in our newsroom. To remind you, our radio program's Twitter name is @nprweekend, Scott is @nprscottsimon and Liane is @nprliane.

1) It's a two-way relationship: We try to reply to at least a few messages each day. If our followers can find a few seconds for us, we can find a few seconds for them. And we have chosen a variety of newsmakers, interesting people or groups to follow ourselves. For example, Weekend Edition follows @newtgingrich @ariannahuff @kasuradio @latinousa @mindyfinn @TheRevAl @badbanana @tucsonweekly @radioopensource among some 700 others.

2) Editorial responsibility: Tweets like, "Sarah Palin writing key words on her palm—had an aunt who did that, too," are fine. So is, "President Obama made a very effective presentation of his views at gov's conference." But saying, "I wouldn't vote for XXX if you paid me," ruins our trustworthiness as journalists.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled his latest uber-gadget, the iPad, this week. Jobs' long history of showmanship and salesmanship can be traced back to this quaint video introducing the Macintosh in 1984.

The latest issue of V Magazine features women of different sizes and shapes wearing designer clothes such as Versace and Dolce and Gabbana. Weekend Edition speaks with one of the first curvy models to be featured in high-end fashion magazines, Emme, along with V features editor Christopher Bartley in an interview Sunday with Liane Hansen. They raise an important question: do high-end fashion magazines fuel unnatural and unhealthy desires to become super-thin, like the size 0 models on the pages of their magazines? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

Thank you for all the thousands of messages of concern. The surgery seems to have been brilliantly successful — for the first time in two years, my limbs are without pain and I feel so nimble I may learn how to play the harp. I am grateful to all of our friends, listeners and the Cleveland Clinic.

Here I am with my daughter Elise having spaghetti and pesto in the cafeteria.

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Caroline Simon

Thank you for all of your kind and encouraging messages. I am undergoing my second day of pre-op testing here at the Cleveland Clinic, and look forward to the arrival of my wife, my children, and my mother Tuesday night. I undergo surgery on Wednesday. I am told that after I awake from surgery, my neck will be in a brace and I may find it difficult to speak for a couple of days. So this is a golden opportunity for my family and friends to finally work a word in edgewise! And I can finally see The View. I feel lucky to be receiving the best possible care at this extraordinary place. Cervical spinal surgery is demanding, but as a doctor told me yesterday, "We have a saying in neurology. 'Hey, it's not brain surgery.'" With thanks for all of your best wishes.

Erin Lancer was one of the Americans in Haiti this week during the earthquake. She was there to visit a 3-year-old boy that she and her husband, Michael, have adopted. She didn't want to leave the country without Geoffrey, their newly adopted son, but the boy doesn't have a passport yet. Friends and family set up a Facebook group dedicated to bringing Erin and Geoffrey home.

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( / © 2009)

Ke$ha, pronounced Kesh-ah, is the pop star of the moment and Scott Simon managed to pin her down, not literally, this week and talk to her about her debut album, "Animal." An album that Rolling Stone magazine called "repulsive, obnoxious and ridiculously catchy." I have to admit that after I watched the video to Ke$ha's song, "Tik Tok" and listened to some of her CD, I thought that maybe she would have a bit of an "animalistic" side.

But there's more to this girl than raunchy clothes and, at times, explicit lyrics. Ke$ha is not the type of girl who will let a bad word or two get her down. In fact, she doesn't seem to let much get her down, not failed relationships or even "backstabbers." If she's ever feeling vulnerable she says she writes a song about it, calling it, "the best revenge."

Thanks to the 7,200+ listeners who participated in our social media survey. Your feedback and suggestions have been extremely helpful. The results give us solid evidence that engaging more directly with our loyal audience is important and that it is possible to combine different communication platforms and build new relationships with you - our audience.

We live in times when the architecture of news is shattering. For the past year, we have been experimenting and tearing down traditional barriers and building new virtual platforms. We have enjoyed having a more personalized experience with you. Although we have always believed that radio is an intimate medium, we now know that radio alone is not enough - we need to continue fostering the new media paradigm.

Here is what some of you said:

On our show today, we brought you Liane Hansen's chat with Chef Frank Clark of Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Foodways. I was part of the Weekend Edition team that traveled with Liane.

For those of you who love desserts, here is a little treat to sweeten your holiday. It's a video I produced of Liane and Frank, as they prepared the colonial dessert syllabub from an authentic 18th-century recipe.

Happy Holidays! And remember: Do try this at home.

UPDATE:

You asked for a Syllabubs recipe, and here it is!

TO MAKE SOLID SYLLABUBS

One pint of cream, half a pint of wine, the juice and grated peel of one lemon, sweetened to your taste; put it in a wide-mouthed bottle, shake it for ten minutes, then pour it into your glasses. It must be made the evening before it is to be used.

Rutledge, Sarah. The Carolina housewife.

Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1979 p.149

Big Bad Boo is an animation company that makes cartoons aimed at educating children about the many rich and diverse cultures in America. Its first cartoon, about a young Iranian boy living in America, was called "Babak and Friends." The success of Babak paved the way for a series called "Mixed Nutz," which teaches children to be proud of their cultural roots. But selling multi-cultural cartoons to big television networks has not been easy. Scott Simon speaks with Shabnam Rezaei, co-founder of Big Bad Boo. The company's latest production, based on the folk tales "1001 Nights," will be broadcast on 27 PBS channels in the New Year, but you can have a sneak peek below. Enjoy!

On the show today, we're going to bring you three reports on human rights cases in strategically important countries. You will hear about dissidents in China, Russia and Iran.

Kian Tajbakhsh

Iran has detained thousands of people since the June 12th election — including this professor who holds both Iranian and American citizenship. Tajbakhsh, 47, is a Columbia University scholar who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for espionage. He moved back to Iran in October 2001 and started a family (below). The Iranian government alleges he is part of a conspiracy to undermine the regime — the "velvet revolution.' Listen to our profile and read the full transcript

Free Kian is a group that follows news about Tajbakhsh and campaigns for his release.

Courtesy of Farideh Gueramy

This is a family photo taken prior to Kian's arrest. Tajbaksh is seen here with his wife, Bahar, and 2 year-old daughter, Hasti.

Sergei Magnitsky

Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer, died in a Moscow prison after being denied medical treatment. Previously, Magnitsky worked for a British-born investor who fell out of favor with Russian authorities and was barred from entering the country in 2005. Listen to this story and read the full transcript

Check out this AP article on the letters Magnitsky wrote from prison before his death.

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A portrait of Serei Magnitsky.

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo

A portrait of Serei Magnitsky.

Liu Xiaobo

One of China's most prominent dissidents is expected to be put on trial for subversion as early as next month. Liu, a former professor of literature, was the man behind the Charter 08 petition, which called for greater democracy and freedom in China. Listen to this story and read the full transcript

The Pen American Center is tracking news about Liu and petitioning for his release.

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Outside the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, pro-democracy activists hold pictures of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was arrested after authoring a manifesto urging civil rights and political reforms.

Kin Cheung/AP Photo

Outside the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, pro-democracy activists hold pictures of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was arrested after authoring a manifesto urging civil rights and political reforms.