Ride rides into the space

On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride was onboard the space shuttle Challenger for the STS-7 mission, thereby becoming the first American woman to go into space. Apart from making two space flights, Ride championed the cause of science education for children. A.S.Ganesh tells you more about Ride, an inspiration and role model for generations…

The first decades of space exploration was largely dominated by two countries – the U.S. and the Soviet Union. This period is even referred to as the Space Race as the two Cold War adversaries pitted themselves against each other to achieve superior spaceflight capabilities.

While the two countries were neck and neck in most aspects, the Soviets sent a woman to space much before the U.S. Even though Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in June 1963, it was another 20 years before Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

Ride was the older of two daughters born to Carol Joyce Ride and Dale Ride. Even though her mother was a counsellor and her father a professor of political science, Ride credits them for fostering her interest in science by enabling her to explore from a very young age.

An athletic teenager, Ride loved sports such as tennis, running, volleyball, and softball. In fact, she attended Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles on a partial tennis scholarship. She even tried her luck in professional tennis, before returning to California to attend Stanford University.

By 1973, Ride not only had a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, but had also obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She got her Master of Science degree in 1975 and obtained her Ph.D. in Physics by 1978.

Having restricted astronaut qualification to men for decades, NASA expanded astronaut selection with the advent of the space shuttle from only pilots to engineers and scientists, opening the doorway for women finally. Having seen an ad in a newspaper inviting women to apply for the astronaut programme, Ride decided to give it a shot.

Out of more than 8,000 applications, Ride became one of six women who were chosen as an astronaut candidate in January 1978. Spaceflight training began soon after and it included parachute jumping, water survival, weightlessness, radio communications, and navigation, among others. She was also involved in developing the robot arm used to deploy and retrieve satellites.