50 Fun Facts About Sally Ride

Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in which year?

She was also the third woman overall, after Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya.

Which Space Shuttle carried Ride on her first flight?

Both of her missions flew on the same orbiter, which was lost in 1986.

What was the designation of Ride's first spaceflight?

The seventh Shuttle mission deployed two communications satellites and the first shuttle pallet satellite.

How old was Ride on her first flight in 1983, then the youngest American in space?

Younger Soviet cosmonauts had flown before her; Hayley Arceneaux, 29, became the youngest American in orbit in 2021.

In which city was Sally Ride born?

She grew up in the Van Nuys and Encino neighbourhoods of the San Fernando Valley.

Which former world number one coached the ten-year-old Ride at tennis?

By 1963 she was ranked 20th in Southern California for girls aged 12 and under.

Which tennis great became Ride's mentor after a 1972 doubles match at Lake Tahoe?

Martin Luther King III and Dexter King served as ball boys that day.

Ride left which Pennsylvania college after three semesters to try professional tennis?

She had won the Eastern Intercollegiate Women's Singles title twice but was homesick and could not practise in snow.

Alongside physics, Ride earned a Stanford bachelor's degree in which subject?

At UCLA she had earned A's in both Shakespeare and quantum mechanics.

Ride's doctoral dissertation studied the interaction of X-rays with what?

Her adviser was Arthur B. C. Walker Jr.; she earned the PhD in 1978.

How did Ride first learn NASA was recruiting women astronauts?

She mailed off for the forms and became one of 8,079 applicants.

How many women were in NASA Astronaut Group 8, selected in 1978?

The 35-strong class called itself 'TFNG', officially 'Thirty-Five New Guys'.

What did the 1978 astronaut class's nickname 'TFNG' officially stand for?

Inside the group it stood for a rather ruder military phrase for newcomers.

Which NASA official phoned Ride on January 16, 1978, to tell her she was selected?

Abbey, the director of flight operations, later defended her choice for STS-7 against JSC director Chris Kraft.

During selection, NASA tested Ride for claustrophobia by placing her in what?

The Personal Rescue Enclosure was a fabric ball designed to move astronauts between Shuttles.

Which aircraft did Ride buy a part interest in to fly on weekends?

She enjoyed the T-38 jets so much she earned a private pilot's licence on her own time.

Which fellow astronaut did Ride marry in 1982?

She flew to the Kansas wedding in her own plane and wore white jeans; they divorced in 1987.

Ride was the first woman to hold which Mission Control role, on the second and third Shuttle flights?

The capsule communicator is the one voice that speaks to the crew.

Which piece of Shuttle hardware did Ride help develop and operate in orbit?

The Remote Manipulator System, or Canadarm, deployed and retrieved the SPAS-1 pallet on STS-7.

Who commanded STS-7, Ride's first mission?

Crippen requested her again as flight engineer for STS-41-G.

Which song's lyrics appeared on T-shirts at Ride's first launch?

'Ride, Sally Ride' comes from the Wilson Pickett hit.

How many tampons did NASA engineers infamously suggest packing for Ride's six-day flight?

They also asked her to help design a 'space makeup kit'.

STS-7 deployed Anik C2 for Canada and Palapa B1 for which country?

Both communications satellites went out in the first two days of the mission.

Into what shape did Ride bend the robot arm during STS-7?

It mirrored the mission patch; STS-7 was also the first time a Shuttle was photographed in orbit, by the SPAS-1 camera.

Where did STS-7 land after bad weather ruled out Kennedy Space Center?

The flight lasted 6 days, 2 hours, 23 minutes and 59 seconds.

What did the STS-7 crew present to President Reagan after the flight?

Ride declined to appear with Bob Hope, whom she regarded as sexist.

Which Soviet cosmonaut did Ride meet for six hours in Budapest in 1983?

The second woman in space spoke English; they swapped gifts and signed first-day covers for each other.

On STS-41-G, which crewmate became the first American woman to walk in space?

It was the first time two women had been in space together.

What keepsake did Ride carry on her second mission?

She also used the robot arm to shake loose a jammed radar antenna during the flight.

Roughly how many hours did Ride spend in space over her two flights?

STS-41-G alone completed 132 orbits in 197.5 hours.

Which presidential panel into the 1986 Shuttle loss did Ride sit on?

She was the only current NASA employee on the commission and chaired its operations subcommittee.

To whom was Ride's tip about cold-stiffened O-rings passed to protect her as a source?

Major General Donald Kutyna revealed the route only after her death.

Ride publicly hugged which whistleblowing Morton-Thiokol engineer?

He said she was the only public figure to support him after he went public with his warnings.

Besides the 1986 inquiry, Ride served on the board investigating which Shuttle loss?

She joined the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003.

What was the title of Ride's 1987 strategic-planning report for the agency?

Management disliked its priority on Earth science over a Mars mission.

Ride's 1986 children's book, co-written with Sue Okie, was called what?

Okie was her friend from high school and Swarthmore.

After leaving NASA, Ride became a physics professor at which university in 1989?

She also directed the California Space Institute at Scripps until 1996.

Which future Secretary of State was Ride's colleague at Stanford's arms-control centre?

Ride researched counting nuclear warheads from space as the Cold War wound down.

Which news website did Ride serve as president of in 1999–2000?

She left to run the education company she co-founded with her partner.

Sally Ride Science, her company, focused on science programmes for which audience?

It had a particular focus on girls and moved to UC San Diego in 2015.

Which NASA outreach programmes let students request images of the Earth and Moon under Ride?

They ran with JPL and UCSD from the mid-1990s until her death.

Which president's offer of the NASA administrator job did Ride turn down?

She did not want to leave California but served on his science advisory committee.

Ride died in 2012 of which illness?

A golf-ball-sized tumour was found after a speech in San Francisco in 2011; she was 61.

Ride's obituary revealed a 27-year partnership with which former tennis player?

The revelation made her the first astronaut known to have been LGBTQ.

Who accepted Ride's posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in 2013?

President Obama announced the award at a national tribute at the Kennedy Center.

The RV Sally Ride, christened in 2014, was delivered to which research body in 2016?

It was the first ship in the research fleet named for a female scientist.

Ride appeared in 2022 on which US coin series, a first for a known LGBT person?

The US Postal Service had issued a stamp in her honour in 2018.

NASA named the crash site of which twin lunar probes after Ride in 2012?

She had directed the mission's education and outreach programmes.

Which 1989 Billy Joel hit name-checks Sally Ride?

She also appeared as herself in a 1999 episode of Touched by an Angel.

In the Apple TV+ series For All Mankind, Ride flies on which nuclear-powered shuttle?

She was played by Ellen Wroe in the show's second season.