schneiderism

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of NASA astronaut and physicist Sally Ride’s first trip into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle, making her the first American woman into space. It was on June 18th, 1983 that Ride and her five crew members rode the Space Shuttle Challenger into Earth orbit. In so doing she became an important role model for all of us, but especially for young girls with a passion for science and adventure. I remember reading about that shuttle mission in the newspaper and thinking that she was just about the coolest person on the planet.

“All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.”

Sally Ride - Retired U.S. Astronaut

Prior to becoming an astronaut, Ride was a nationally ranked tennis player. When asked about her professional tennis career she quipped:

“I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.”

She was preceded into space as one of the first women by Soviet Kosmonauts Valentina Tereschkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. After inspiring an entire generation of women, she retired from NASA in 1987 and entered academia.