(FORTUNE Magazine) – Anousheh Ansari wants to see stars. But not the Hollywood kind. Sitting in the lobby of Manhattan's Peninsula Hotel, the 35-year-old Sonus Networks VP--one of two women on this year's rich list (No. 33)--is talking about her desire to board a civilian-carrying, suborbital shuttle. Limitations, from glass ceilings to the Earth's oxygen-depleted wall of atmospheric gas, are clearly not her strong suit. "It would be nice to get outside the planet and see the universe for what it really is," she says breezily, as if it were as easy to do as, say, making $180 million.

Not that making $180 million--or rocketing through space, or getting from her native Meshhad, Iran, to her current home in Plano, Texas--is easy, but Ansari sure makes it seem that way. She moved to the U.S. from Iran at 17, subsequently picking up English, two electrical engineering degrees, and a husband, Hamid, also Iranian. In 1993, the couple co-founded Telecom Technologies Inc., and the company quickly became dominant in softswitch solutions, which unify networks for telephone, Internet, and wireless communication. (Anousheh was the CEO and controlling partner; says Hamid: "She is the boss.") When Sonus, a maker of hardware and software for telecom providers, acquired TTI in January, Anousheh got the stock that comprises the bulk of her net worth.

So what's keeping her terrestrial? She doesn't have kids, but Ansari still has a job at Sonus, and she has tickets to The Producers tonight, not to mention an appointment with her money manager. Right now she has lunch plans. A white-gloved attendant spins the revolving door as Ansari strides out onto Fifth Avenue. Earth, despite its limitations, has been good to her.

--Grainger David