Sally Ride

Sally Ride

Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American physicist and astronaut. Ride joined NASA in 1978 and, at the age of 32, became the first American woman to enter into low Earth orbit in 1983. She left NASA in 1987 to work at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control and had served on the investigation panels for two space shuttle disasters (Challenger and Columbia) – the only person to serve on both. She co-authored six children's science books with her life partner of 27 years, Tam O'Shaughnessy and founded Sally Ride Science in 2001. Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to be launched into space.

Read more about Sally Ride:  Early Years, NASA Career, After NASA, Death, Personal Life, Awards and Honors, Bibliography

Famous quotes containing the words sally and/or ride:

    In the quilts I had found good objects—hospitable, warm, with soft edges yet resistant, with boundaries yet suggesting a continuous safe expanse, a field that could be bundled, a bundle that could be unfurled, portable equipment, light, washable, long-lasting, colorful, versatile, functional and ornamental, private and universal, mine and thine.
    Radka Donnell-Vogt, U.S. quiltmaker. As quoted in Lives and Works, by Lynn F. Miller and Sally S. Swenson (1981)

    Not too many years ago, a child’s experience was limited by how far he or she could ride a bicycle or by the physical boundaries that parents set. Today ... the real boundaries of a child’s life are set more by the number of available cable channels and videotapes, by the simulated reality of videogames, by the number of megabytes of memory in the home computer. Now kids can go anywhere, as long as they stay inside the electronic bubble.
    Richard Louv (20th century)