Hot! Sally Ride

Sally Ride was the first American woman in space in 1983 on space shuttle Challenger and is a former NASA Astronaut. Her second shuttle flight was again on Challenger aloft in 1984 for an eight day mission and was preparing for her third mission when Challenger exploded in 1986. She was appointed to the Presidential Commission that investigated the Challenger accident and subsequently moved to NASA headquarters as an assistant to the administrator for long-range planning. She retired from NASA in 1987.

Biography

Sally Kristen Ride was born on May 26, 1951 in suburban Encino, Los Angeles, California. As a teenager she took up tennis and within a few years was ranked eighteenth nationally.

She gained a BA in English (1973), a BS degree in Physics (1973), an MS degree in Physics (1975) and her PHD in Physics (1978) all from Stanford University.

Between 1973 and 1978 she held teaching, assistant and research assignments whilst a graduate student in the physics department of Stanford University, experience including one summer with the low-temperatures group working with experimental general relativity and three years X-ray astrophysics whilst working on her thesis.

Selected to NASA in January 1978 (Group 8), she completed training in August 1978. Thereafter she performed underwater zero-g simulations with the mock-up RMS, was a member of the RMS core group and worked with SPAS/RMS deployment -retrieval procedures throughout 1980 and 1981. She was then Capcom for Shuttles 2 and 3 before being selected as MS-2 for Shuttle 7 on April 20, 1982.

Education

She graduated from Westlake High School, Los Angeles, California, in 1968; received a bachelor of science in physics and a bachelor of arts in English in 1973 and Master of Science and doctorate degrees in physics in 1975 and 1978, respectively, from Stanford University. As a young girl, she wanted to become a professional tennis player and, at one time, was a ranked player on the junior tennis circuit.

She graduated from Westlake High School in 1968 and received a Bachelor of Science in physics and a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1973 from Stanford University. She also received her Master of Science and doctorate degrees in physics from Stanford in 1975 and 1978.

Did you know?

* Barbara Morgan , the back up "Teacher in Space" in 1985 became the first teacher in space in 2007.

* The Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord, New Hampshire and the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove, Utah are named in her memory, as are asteroid 3352 McAuliffe and the McAuliffe crater on the Moon.

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Sally Ride Links:

Astronaut Biography: Sally K. Ride : by JSC NASA. Also source of photo above.

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