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Sally K. Ride

BIRTHDAY: May 26, 1951

ABOUT HER
When Sally Ride answered a newspaper ad soliciting applications from young scientists for NASA, she didn't know she would be the first American woman in space. However, at the age of 26 she was already well prepared to become an astronaut as she was a good athlete in tennis, baseball, and football and a scientist with her Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University.

Up until the year Sally Ride applied to NASA, no woman had been accepted into its program. That year NASA accepted five women into the astronaut class. Dr. Ride was chosen by Commander Robert Crippen in 1982 for the crew of the Challenger.

In October 1983 Dr. Ride flew her last mission on the Challenger and accepted a job as a physicist at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. She continues to speak on behalf of U.S. space efforts.

AWARDS/HONORS

• First U.S. woman to fly in space
• Ph.D. from Stanford University specializing in general relativity and free-electron lasers

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sally Ride, Carolyn Blacknall
Women Astronauts Aboard the Shuttle, Mary Virginia Fox
Sally Ride: Shooting for the Stars, Jane Hurwitz and Sue Hurwitz,
Sally Ride and the New Astronauts: Scientists in Space, Karen O'Connor
To Space and Back, Sally Ride
The Shuttle Story, Andrew Wilson

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