Women's Quarter Series: Sally Ride

Since she and Bessie Colman both have geological features named in their honor on Pluto, I decided Sally Ride would be the next woman I studied. 

 

Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly in space. There are extensive details about her history with NASA and as a professor. What I found most interesting were some lesser-known facts I discovered in an article. These included: 

 

• She was an avid stamp collector; so even though she passed away in 2012, in 2018 the Sally Ride stamp was issued!
  
  
• She was also a tennis player and played against Billie Jean King. She thought about going pro but decided instead on a Physics career.
  
  
• She and her younger sister 'Bear' look like twins to me :)
  
  
• She was the first female CAPCOM (ground control voice) talking to astronauts on the space shuttle.
   
• One of my favorite stories involves NASA engineers reaching out to her when they were a bit clueless about what special supplies a woman astronaut might need.“I remember the engineers trying to decide how many tampons should fly on a one-week flight,” Sally said later. “They asked, ‘Is 100 the right number?’” She replied, “No, that would not be the right number.” Ya think? 😆
  
  Another story is that on the first day of mission STS-41G, Mission Control woke up the astronauts with a, "Good morning, Challenger." Instead of saying "Roger," Sally pretended to be an answering machine: "We're sorry, nobody can take your call right now. Please leave your name and number..." The other astronauts kept up the joke throughout the mission.
  
  
• She was a Trekkie, which makes sense given her love for space, and she also co-authored some science books for children.
  
  
• She received the US Medal of Freedom in 2013. Her long-time partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy, accepted on her behalf. Obama was quoted, "As the first American woman in space, Sally did not just break the stratospheric glass ceiling, she blasted through it,"Obama said. "And when she came back to Earth, she devoted her life to helping girls excel in fields like math, science and engineering."

Quote from Sally Ride: " I would like to be remembered as someone who was not afraid to
do what she wanted to do, and as someone who took risks along the way in order to achieve
her goals." source- https://quotesgram.com/img/sally-ride-famous-quotes/146306/