Sally Kristen Ride was an American astronaut and physicist.
90 Facts About Sally Ride
2.
Sally Ride was the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space, having done so at the age of 32.
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Sally Ride was selected as a mission specialist astronaut with NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first class of NASA astronauts to include women.
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Sally Ride operated the robotic arm to deploy and retrieve SPAS-1.
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Sally Ride spent a total of more than 343 hours in space.
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Sally Ride worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering.
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Sally Ride served on the committees that investigated the loss of Challenger and of Columbia, the only person to participate in both.
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Sally Kristen Ride was born on May 26,1951, in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, the elder child of Dale Burdell Ride and Carol Joyce Ride.
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Sally Ride's father served with the US Army in Europe with the 103rd Infantry Division during World War II.
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Sally Ride grew up in the Van Nuys and Encino neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
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Sally Ride enjoyed sports, but tennis most of all, and at age 10 was coached by Alice Marble, a former world number one player.
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Sally Ride attended Encino Elementary School, Portola Junior High, Birmingham High School and then, as a sophomore on a tennis scholarship, Westlake School for Girls, an exclusive all-girls private school in Los Angeles.
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Sally Ride graduated in June 1968, and then took a class in advanced math at Santa Monica College during the summer break.
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Sally Ride's friend Sue Okie was interested in going to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, so Ride applied too.
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Sally Ride was interviewed by Fred Hargadon, the dean of admissions, who was impressed by both her mental and her tennis ability.
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Sally Ride commenced classes at Swarthmore on September 18,1968.
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Sally Ride played golf, and made Swarthmore's field hockey varsity team.
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Sally Ride won all six of her intercollegiate tennis matches, and became the Eastern Intercollegiate Women's Singles champion.
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Sally Ride defended her title in May 1969, winning in straight sets.
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Sally Ride entered the University of California, Los Angeles, where she enrolled in courses in Shakespeare and quantum mechanics, earning A's in both subjects.
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Sally Ride realized that far more effort would be necessary in order to reach the required level of fitness: she needed to practice for eight hours a day.
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Sally Ride concluded that she did not have what it took to be a professional tennis player.
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Sally Ride applied for a transfer to Stanford University as a junior.
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Sally Ride was instrumental in approving her admission.
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Sally Ride graduated in 1973 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature.
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Sally Ride then earned a Master of Science degree in physics in 1975 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1978.
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Sally Ride wrote her doctoral dissertation on "the interaction of X-rays with the interstellar medium", under the supervision of Arthur BC Walker Jr.
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At Stanford, Sally Ride renewed her acquaintance with Molly Tyson, who was a year younger than her.
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Sally Ride later quit the Stanford tennis team in protest against the university's refusal to join the Pac-8 Conference in women's tennis.
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Tyson ended their relationship in 1975, and Sally Ride moved in with Bill Colson, a fellow graduate physics student who was recently divorced.
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In January 1977, Sally Ride spotted an article on the front page of The Stanford Daily that told how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was recruiting a new group of astronauts for the Space Shuttle program and wanted to recruit women.
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Sally Ride mailed a request for, and received the application forms.
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Sally Ride's was one of 8,079 applications NASA received by the June 30,1977, deadline.
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Sally Ride was asked to write a one-page essay on why she wanted to become an astronaut.
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Sally Ride was one of 35 astronaut candidates in the group, of whom six were women.
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Sally Ride was graded a civil service GS-12, with a salary of US$21,883.
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Sally Ride bought a unit in the Nassau Bay, Texas, area, and moved in with Colson, who secured a research grant at Rice University so they could move to Houston together.
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Sally Ride enjoyed flying so much she took private flying lessons to earn a private pilot's license.
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Sally Ride bought a part interest in a Grumman Tiger aircraft, which she would fly on weekends.
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In 1981, Sally Ride began dating Steven Hawley, another one of the TFNGs.
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Sally Ride flew up from Houston for the occasion in her Grumman Tiger, and wore white jeans.
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Sally Ride served as a ground-based capsule communicator for the second and third Space Shuttle flights, and helped develop the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System, known as the "Canadarm" or robot arm.
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Sally Ride was the first woman to serve as a CapCom.
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Factors in Sally Ride's favor included her agreeable personality and ability to work with others, her performance as CapCom, and her skill with the robot arm.
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NASA was still adjusting to female astronauts, and engineers had asked Sally Ride to assist them in developing a "space makeup kit", assuming it would be something a woman would want on board.
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Sally Ride became the youngest American astronaut in space, although there had been younger cosmonauts.
47.
Part of Sally Ride's job was to operate the robot arm to deploy and later retrieve SPAS-1, which was brought back to Earth.
48.
Sally Ride manipulated the robot arm into the shape of a "7", as it appeared on the mission patch.
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Sally Ride was not affected and did not require medication for the syndrome.
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Sally Ride would become the first American woman to fly twice, and her TFNG crewmate Kathryn Sullivan would become the first American woman to perform an extravehicular activity ; Savitskaya had already become the first woman to do both when she flew in space on Soyuz T-12 in July 1984.
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The rookie astronauts on the flight were cautious about moving about too soon, lest they suffer from space adaptation syndrome, but Sally Ride was now a veteran astronaut, one who knew that she would not be affected.
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Sally Ride then used the RMS to nudge the antenna panel closed.
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On her two flights Sally Ride had spent over 343 hours in space.
54.
Sally Ride was back in the rotation, training for her third flight, STS-61-I.
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On January 7,1986, Sally Ride provided a glowing reference for her friend Lynn Sherr for NASA's Journalist in Space Project.
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Sally Ride visited when she went to Atlanta on speaking engagements.
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Sally Ride still performed her astronaut spouse duties for Hawley when he flew in space for the second time on STS-61-C in January 1986.
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Sally Ride was appointed to the Rogers Commission, the presidential commission investigating the disaster, and headed its subcommittee on operations.
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Sally Ride was the only Space Shuttle astronaut and the only current NASA employee on the commission.
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Sally Ride was even more disturbed by revelations of NASA dysfunctional management decision-making and risk-assessment processes.
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Sally Ride hugged him publicly to show her support for his efforts.
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Sally Ride authored a report titled "NASA Leadership and America's Future in Space".
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Sally Ride founded NASA's Office of Exploration, which she headed for two months.
64.
In May 1987, Sally Ride announced that she was leaving NASA to take up a two-year fellowship at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control, commencing on August 15,1987.
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Sally Ride researched means by which nuclear warheads could be counted and verified from space, but the impending end of the Cold War made this a much less pressing issue.
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On July 1,1989, Sally Ride became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the California Space Institute, part of the university's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
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Sally Ride retired from UCSD in 2007 and became a professor emeritus.
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Sally Ride bought a house in La Jolla, California, and O'Shaughnessy moved in after taking up a teaching position at San Diego Mesa College.
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Sally Ride turned down offers from President Bill Clinton to become NASA Administrator, not wanting to leave California, but did agree to serve on the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology.
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From September 1999 to July 2000, Sally Ride was the president of the space news website, Space.
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Sally Ride then became the president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she co-founded with O'Shaughnessy, who served as the chief executive officer and chair of the board.
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Sally Ride Science created entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls.
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In 2003, Sally Ride served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, and was the only person to serve on both the panel that investigated the Challenger disaster and the one that investigated the Columbia disaster.
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Sally Ride endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008, and was contacted by Lori Garver, the head of Barack Obama's transition team for NASA in 2008, but made it clear that she was not interested in the post of NASA administrator.
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Sally Ride served on the board of the National Math and Science Initiative in 2007 and the Educate to Innovate initiative in 2009, and was a member of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee, which conducted an independent review of American space policy requested by the Office of Science and Technology Policy on May 7,2009.
76.
When Sally Ride delivered a speech at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in San Francisco on March 10,2011, O'Shaughnessy and a friend noted that she looked ill.
77.
Sally Ride underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy to reduce the size of the tumor.
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Sally Ride had ensured that O'Shaughnessy would inherit her estate when she drew up her will in 1992, but now they registered their domestic partnership on August 15.
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Sally Ride died on July 23,2012, at the age of 61, at her home in La Jolla.
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Sally Ride's papers are in the National Air and Space Museum Archives of the Smithsonian Institution.
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The relationship was confirmed by Sally Ride's sister Bear, who said Sally Ride chose to keep her personal life private, including her sickness and treatments.
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Sally Ride received the National Space Society's von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Eagle by the Charles A Lindbergh Fund, and the NCAA's Theodore Roosevelt Award.
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Sally Ride was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame and was awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal twice.
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Sally Ride directed public outreach and educational programs for NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission, which sent twin satellites to map the moon's gravity.
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That day, President Barack Obama announced that Sally Ride would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.
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Sally Ride was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago that celebrates LGBT history and people, in 2014.
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Sally Ride was honored with a Google Doodle on what would have been her 64th birthday in 2015.
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The US Postal Service issued a first-class postage stamp honoring her in 2018, and Sally Ride appeared as one of the first two honorees of the American Women quarters series in March 2022.
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Sally Ride was the first known LGBT person to appear on US currency.
90.
On 1 April 2022, a satellite named after Ride was launched into space as part of the Satellogic Aleph-1 constellation.