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Sally Kristen Ride
Astronaut
Nationality	American
Status	Retired
Born	May 26, 1951 Encino, Los Angeles, California
Space time	14d 07h 46m
Selection	1978 NASA Group
Missions	STS-7, STS-41-G
Mission insignia
Retirement	August 15, 1997

Sally Kristen Ride (born May 26, 1951) is an American former astronaut who in 1983 became the first American woman to reach outer space.^[1][2] She was preceded by two Soviet women, Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). At the time, she was the youngest American to enter outer space. She was married for a time to NASA Astronaut Steve Hawley.

Sally Ride was born in Los Angeles, and is the oldest child of Joyce Ride and Dale B. Ride. Sally has a sister named Karen 'Bearful' Ride, who became a Presbyterian minister. Dr. Ride attended high school at Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles (now Harvard-Westlake School) on a tennis scholarship. In addition to being interested in science she was a nationally ranked tennis player. She initially attended Swarthmore College but received her bachelor's degrees (in English and physics) from Stanford University near Palo Alto, California. She then received a master's degree and a Ph.D. in physics at the same institution, while doing research in astrophysics and free-electron laser physics.^[1][2]

Ride was one of 8,000 people to answer an advertisement in a newspaper seeking applicants for the space program.^[3] As a result, Ride joined NASA in 1978. As part of her training she was the Capsule Communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights (STS-2 and STS-3) and helped develop the Space Shuttle's robot arm.^[2] On June 18, 1983 she became the first American woman in space as a crewmember on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7. On STS-7, the 5-person crew deployed two communications satellites, conducted pharmaceutical experiments, and was the first to use the robot arm in space and the first to use the arm to retrieve a satellite. Her second space flight was in 1984, also on board the Challenger. She has cumulatively spent more than 343 hours in space. Ride was 8 months into training for her third flight at the time of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident.^[2] She was named to the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, and headed its Subcommittee on Operations.^[2] After the investigation, Ride was assigned to NASA headquarters in Washington, DC. There she led NASA's first strategic planning effort, authoring a report entitled "Leadership and America's Future in Space", and founded NASA's Office of Exploration.^[1]

In 1987, Ride left to work at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego and Director of the California Space Institute. In 2003, she was asked to serve on the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board. She is currently on leave from the university, and is the President and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she founded in 2001, that creates entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls.^[4][5][6]

Ride has written or co-written multiple books on space, aimed at children with the goal of encouraging children to study science.^[2][7][8]

Ride has received numerous honors and awards, including the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Eagle, and the NCAA's Theodore Roosevelt Award. She has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and the Astronaut Hall of Fame, and has twice been awarded the National Spaceflight Medal.^[2] Ride is the only person to serve on both of the panels investigating Shuttle accidents (those for the Challenger accident and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster). Two elementary schools in the United States are named after her: Sally K. Ride Elementary School in The Woodlands, Texas, and Sally K. Ride Elementary School in Germantown, Maryland.^[1]

On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Sally Ride into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts.^{[citation needed]}

• Sally Ride Science Festivals
• Sally Ride Girls Science Camps
• Sally Ride Science page, founded 2001

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