Sally Ride: First Woman Astronaut

Sally Ride

First Woman Astronaut

Astronaut, hero, and inspiration are three words Sally Ride is described by. In her lifetime, she was a professor, professional tennis player, astronaut, author, company owner, and women’s rights advocate. It is no wonder she is remembered as a hero to America and the world. Sally Ride changed the world by making women equal to men in space and in America. She encouraged young girls to make an impact and take important jobs in the areas of math and science. She left a legacy as America’s symbol of women’s equality.

The early life of Sally Ride was tormented by barriers, but she managed to become a strong women who was ready to change the world. She was introduced to the barrier or “glass ceiling” as some called

When Ride was first sent into orbit, she was the youngest person of the time, not to mention the first woman (encyclopedia.com). She was sent on two different space missions and was set to go on a third, but after one flight’s failure, NASA stopped all planned missions before they figured out what went wrong (space.com). Ride was the only one to serve for both commissions for investigating the two rocket failures with astronauts (nasa.gov). To begin at NASA, she made a robotic arm for her first space mission (nasa.gov). She was sent on her first space mission, the STS-7 with Robert Crippen as her pilot as he would be for her next mission, the STS-41G (encyclopedia.com). Their were five people on her first Challenger mission, which was an accomplishment for NASA because to begin with their could only be two people a rocket (scholastic.com). Ride continued her career at NASA by being a capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for astronauts in space (space.com). She was awarded for her hard work and impact in space with the NASA Space Flight Medal and being added to the Astronaut Hall of Fame (biography.com). Before her journey into space, she was a top ranking tennis player who many professionals envied (Stone, 97). She was a professor to many students at UCSD where she taught in the sciences, inspiring many young minds (Stone, 97). She wrote five science books for children to describe her adventures in space and the future of science

“Sally was a national hero and a powerful role model”, President Obama said about Ride (scholastic.com). In her opinion, girls have a natural interest in science, but in the 1900’s, the world tried to keep girls away from science and careers in it (scholastic.com). She tried to help them pursue it throughout her life. She partly achieved her goal by paving the way for many women to travel in space as a normality (scholastic.com). Sally Ride died on July 23, 2012 of pancreatic cancer at age 61 (biography.com). When she died, almost no one had a clue she had cancer, even though she had been battling it for seventeen months (biography.com). Only when she died, did they not only find out about her cancer but also about the fact that she had a wife (space.com)! She is remembered by her brilliance, secretiveness, work in women’s rights and overall heroic. A pit on the moon made by a rocket was named in her memory along with many other honors (space.com). “The stars don’t look bigger, but they do look brighter,”- Sally Ride (brainyquotes.com). As she described her experience in space, we get a deeper meaning of life, that we are all the same, but we all have the oppurtunity to rise and shine brighter like the stars from a space perspective.

Sally Ride broke the highest glass ceiling, and she made women equal to men both in space and in America. By inspiring young women to be in the field of science, she made science