After Challenger exploded, in the wake of Columbia’s fall, we now know that the Space Shuttle was no mere ‘space taxi.’ It was a volatile, all-too-vulnerable vehicle. Clichés aside, you really did have to possess the right stuff to fly it.
Sally Kristen Ride does. Now, in the midst of International Women’s History Month, we’re offering some perspective on the life on the first American woman to rocket into space. That happened on STS-7, June 18, 1983. Challenger was her ship on this earlier, comparatively uneventful flight.
No mere passenger, Ride was a key mission specialist on a journey that saw the crew conduct a slew of experiments and formation fly with a free-flying satellite.
Instantly she became a role model for millions of young women the world over. What people saw on their television screens was a poised, composed young woman (she was 32 when she first flew aboard the shuttle). What most didn’t see was the preparation it took to ride that rocket: years of study, culminating in a PhD in physics from Stanford University, and the weathering of a rigorous astronaut selection process. These are the quiet, un-dramatic underpinnings to what was briefly a very public career.
After the Challenger tragedy in 1986, Ride was named a member of a Presidential Commission to investigate what happened. Later, she became a physics professor and director of the University of California’s California Space Institute. In 2001, she founded her own company, one devoted to motivating young women to pursue careers in science, math and technology.
The motivation begins early. Ride’s the author of five science books for children, all of them about space. She is, in fact, paying it forward – preparing the way for others to follow, to surpass what she did.
In the end, that’s Sally Ride’s real legacy.
Want to know more about America’s first female astronaut to fly in space? If you find yourself at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center take some time to visit the Astronaut Hall of Fame.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Image: Wikipedia)
