Sally Kristen Ride (1951 - 2012)

Born 26 May 1951 in Encino, Los Angeles County, California, United States

Ancestors

Died 23 Jul 2012 at age 61 in La Jolla, San Diego County, California, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Sara Patton [send private message]

Biography

Sally Ride is Notable.

Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American physicist and astronaut. She became the first American woman in space in 1983, and was the third woman in space overall, the two first being from the Soviet Union.

Ride flew on two Space Shuttle missions on board Challenger - STS-7 (with Robert Crippen and Frederick Hauck) and STS-41-G (with Robert Crippen and Jon McBride).

STS-41-G	STS-7

Sally Kristen Ride was born on May 26, 1951, in Encino, part of Los Angeles. Her father Dale Burden Ride was a political science professor at Santa Monica College, and her mother worked as a volunteer counselor at women's correctional facility. She grew up in the Encino and Van Nuys neighborhoods of LA. Both parents were elders in the Presbyterian Church. Her only sister became a Presbyterian minister.

After graduating from private Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles, Sally Ride attended Swarthmore College, took physics courses at the University of California, and then entered Stanford University where she earned four degrees, two undergraduate degrees in English and Physics and two graduate degrees in Physics.^[1] In addition, she was a nationally ranked tennis player.^[2]

In 1978, Dr. Sally Ride was selected to be an astronaut as part of NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first class to include women. The group of 35 included 6 women.^[3] She became the first American woman in space on June 18, 1983, as a crew member on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7. Part of her job was to operate the robotics arm to deploy and retrieve the first Shuttle Pallet Satellite SPAS-01.^[4] Her second space flight, also aboard Challenger, was STS-41-G in October 1984.

Ride was preparing for her third mission, STS-61-M when the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred. Among the victims of the disaster was Judith Resnik, a member of Ride's NASA class, Group 8. Sally Ride was part of the Rogers Commission that investigated the disaster. (She would also later be part of the commission that investigated the Columbia disaster in 2003). It was later revealed that Ride had provided key information that led to the identification of the cause of the explosion.^[5]

In 1987, Sally Ride left NASA to accept a fellowship at Stanford University.^[6] In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego ^[7].

Ride led two public-outreach programs for NASA, the ISS EarthKAM and GRAIL MoonKAM projects. The programs allowed middle school students to request images of the Earth and Moon. In 2001 she co-founded Sally Ride Science, a nonprofit organization aiming to inspire upper elementary and middle school students in science, technology, engineering, and math, with a particular focus on encouraging girls to pursue careers in STEM.^[8] She wrote or co-wrote six children's science books.^[8][3]

She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1988, and into the California Hall of Fame at the California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts on December 6, 2006.

Sally died on 23 July 2012, seventeen months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.^[9] She was interred in a private ceremony next to her father in at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica.^[10][11]

A National Tribute to Sally Ride was held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on May 20, 2013. That day, President Barack Obama announced that Ride would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The medal was presented to Tam O'Shaughnessy (Ride's life partner of 27 years ^[12]) in a ceremony at the White House on November 20, 2013 ^[13].

She was honored with a Google Doodle on what would have been her 64th birthday in 2015. The U.S. Postal Service issued a first-class forever postage stamp in her honor in 2018.

Sources

1. ↑ Alumna Sally Ride Remembered, news article at stanford.edu, April 10, 2019. Accessed Jan 2021.
2. ↑ Sally Ride's racquet donated to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum by Dr. Tam O'Shaughnessy in 2013. Accessed Jan 2021.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Ride, Sally Kristen NASA biography and chronology at astronautix.com, accessed 25 Jan 2021.
4. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Sally Ride," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (accessed January 25, 2021).
5. ↑ An oral history of the Challenger disaster, by Margaret Lazarus Dean, Jan 28, 2019, PopularMechanics.com, accessed Jan 2021.
6. ↑ "Astronaut Sally Ride to leave NASA" by Michael Specter, The Washington Post, May 27, 1987; accessed Jan 2021.
7. ↑ "Astronaut Ride to Pursue Dual Interests at UCSD" by Patrick McDonnell. Los Angeles Times. June 17, 1989.
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Sally Ride Science at the University of California, San Diego
9. ↑ "Sally Ride dies" by Clara Moskowitz, Space.com, July 23, 2012. accessed 25 Jan 2021.
10. ↑ "First woman in space finds final resting place" by Ashley Archibald, Aug 7, 2012, Santa Monica Daily-Press, accessed Jan 2021.
11. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #94078737
12. ↑ "Sally Ride, First American Woman In Space, Revealed To Have Female Partner Of 27 Years". New York City: HuffPost. July 23, 2012.
13. ↑ The White House, Office of the Press Secretary. "President Obama Announces Sally Ride as a Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom". The White House. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. May 20, 2013

See also:

• Find A Grave: Memorial #94078737, database and images (accessed 25 January 2021), memorial page for Sally Ride (26 May 1951–23 Jul 2012), citing Woodlawn Cemetery, Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave .
• Sally Kristen Ride biography, NASA biography and chronology at astronautix.com
• Wikipedia: Sally Ride
• Wikidata: Item Q49285, en:Wikipedia
• "Sally K. Ride Papers, Acc. 2014-0025, National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Tam O'Shaughnessy, received March 2014. Arranged and described by Patti Williams, 2015.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Sara Patton for creating WikiTree profile Ride-21 through the import of watkins-littleton-kerrihard.ged on Mar 9, 2013.