SALLY RIDE SHE WAS THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN IN SPACE

Sally Ride did not initially set out to become a role model for women, but that is exactly what happened when in 1983 she became the first American woman in space. The native of California was pursuing a graduate degree in physics at Stanford University

She applied and beat thousands of other candidates to become one of six women selected for the programme. She joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space, but she was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). Sally Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have travelled to space, having done so at the age of 32.

Early life

As the elder child of Dale Burdell Ride and Carol Joyce Ride (née Anderson), Sally was born in Los Angeles on 25 May 1951. her sibling, Karen ‘Bear’ Ride, who is a Presbyterian minister. Both parents were elders in the Presbyterian Church. Ride’s mother, who was of Norwegian descent and had worked as a volunteer counsellor at a women’s prison.

Her father had been a political science professor at Santa Monica College. Sally attended Portola Junior High (now Portola Middle School) and then Birmingham High School before graduating from the private Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles on a scholarship. In addition to being interested in science, she was a nationally ranked tennis player. Sally attended Swarthmore College for three semesters, took physics’ courses at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then entered Stanford University as a junior, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English and physics. At Stanford, she earned a master’s degree in 1975 and a PhD in physics in 1978 whilst doing research on the interaction of X-rays with the interstellar medium. Astrophysics and free electron lasers were her specific areas of study.

NASA career

In 1978, Sally was selected to be an astronaut as part of NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first class to select women. After graduating in 1979, she became eligible to work as a mission specialist. She served as the ground-based capsule communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights and helped develop the Space Shuttle’s ‘Canadarm’ robot arm. Prior to Sally’s first space flight, she was subject to much media attention due to her gender. During a press conference, she was asked questions such as: “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?” and “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?” Despite this and the historical significance of the mission, Sally insisted that she saw herself in only one way, as an astronaut.

On 18 June 1983, Sally became the first American woman in space as a crew member on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7. Many of the people attending the launch wore T-shirts bearing the words ‘Ride, Sally Ride,’ lyrics from Wilson Pickett’s song ‘Mustang Sally.’ The purpose of the mission was to deploy two communication satellites and the first Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS-1 conducting experiments within the cargo bay and test the TDRS satellite.

SPAS-1 was successfully deployed, underwent experiments, then recollected and brought back to Earth. Part of Sally’s job was to operate the robotics’ arm to deploy and retrieve SPAS-1. Her second space flight was STS-41-G in 1984, also on-board Challenger. She spent a total of more than 343 hours in space.

Cancelled Shuttle mission

Sally had completed eight months of training for her third flight (STS-61-M, a TDRS deployment mission) when the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on 28 January 1986. She joined the Rogers’ Commission (the presidential commission investigating the Challenger disaster) and headed its subcommittee on operations. She was the only person to serve on both of the panels investigating Shuttle accidents (those for the Challenger and later the Columbia disaster which occurred on 1 February 2003.)

Following the Challenger investigation, Sally was assigned to NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she led NASA’s first strategic planning effort, authored a report titled ‘NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space’ and founded NASA’s Office of Exploration. After Sally Ride’s death in 2012, General Donald Kutyna revealed that she had discreetly provided him with key information about O-rings, namely that they become stiff at low temperatures, that eventually led to identification of the cause of the explosion of the Challenger.

After NASA

In 1987, Sally left her position in Washington, D.C., to work at the Stanford University Centre for International Security and Arms Control. In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego and director of the California Space Institute. From the mid-1990s until her death, Sally led two public-outreach programmes for NASA; the ISS EarthKAM and GRAIL MoonKAM projects, in cooperation with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and UCSD.

The programmes allowed middle school students to request images of the Earth and Moon. In 1999, she acted in the season 5 finale of Touched by an Angel, titled ‘Godspeed.’ In 2003, she was asked to serve on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Sally was the president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she co-founded in 2001 that created entertaining science programmes and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls.

According to Roger Boisjoly, who was the engineer who warned of the technical problems that led to the Challenger disaster, Sally was the only public figure to show support for him when he went public with his pre-disaster warnings, after the entire workforce at MortonThiekel shunned him. Sally hugged him publicly to show her support for his efforts.

Personal life

Sally was extremely private about her personal life. In 1982, she married fellow NASA astronaut Steve Hawley, but they divorced in 1987. After

Sally’s death, her obituary revealed that her partner of 25 years was Tam

O’Shaughnessy, a professor emerita of school psychology at San Diego State

University and childhood friend, who met her when both were aspiring tennis players. O’Shaughnessy was also a science writer and later, the co-founder of Sally Ride Science.

O’Shaughnessy served as the Chief

Executive Officer and Chair of the

Board of Sally Ride Science. Tam and

Sally wrote six acclaimed children’s science books together. Their relationship was revealed by the company and confirmed by her sister, who said Sally chose to keep her personal life private, including her sickness and treatments. Sally Ride died on 23 July 2012, at the age of 61, in her home in La Jolla, California, seventeen months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.