AMERICA ’S FIRST FEMALE ASTRONAUT
Dr. Sally Ride was born in Los Angeles , California. She attended Stanford University where she received a bachelor of science in Physics and a bachelor of arts in English in 1973. During the next five years she went on to receive a Master of Science and a Doctorate degree in astrophysics from Stanford as well. In 1978, Dr. Ride read about NASA’s search for astronauts and decided to apply to be one. Over 8000 people applied, 35 made the cut, including 6 women, and one of these was Sally Ride. She trained for a year doing parachuting, gravity and weightlessness training, water survival, navigation and radio communications. After a favorable evaluation by NASA officials, she became eligible for a mission in space. While she waited for a mission, her job was to relay messages from the crew to mission control for the second and third flights of the space shuttle Columbia.
On June 18, 1983, Dr. Ride became the first American woman to travel into space. The STS-7 Mission, aboard the Challenger, launched from Kennedy Space Center with Captain Robert L. Crippen (Spacecraft Commander), Captain Frederick H. Hauck (Pilot), and fellow mission specialists, Colonel John M. Fabian and Dr. Norman E. Thagard. During the 7-day mission, the crew deployed and retrieved satellites for Canada and Indonesia and carried out joint German/American experiments and other science experiments for the United States. Her second mission was STS-41-G aboard the Challenger, where she deployed a radiation satellite and conducted scientific observations of the earth. This mission lasted 8 days and was Dr. Ride’s last mission.
Dr. Ride retired from the space program in 1987 and has written three books: To Space and Back, Voyager: An Adventure to the Edge of the Solar System, and The Third Planet: Exploring the Earth From Space. Dr. Ride served on the Presidential Commission that investigated the Challenger accident. In 1989, she joined the University of California ’s Space Institute and later in 2001, she founded her own company called Sally Ride Science, which fulfilled her longtime dream of motivating girls and young women to pursue careers in math, science and technology. The company creates science programs for middle and upper elementary students, parents and teachers.
Dr. Sally Ride has received numerous awards and honors. She has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. She won the Von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Award, the NCAA’s Theodore Roosevelt Award, and has been twice awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal. To have a dream as a female, to accomplish that dream and to pass that dream on to others makes Dr. Sally Ride a role-model for all of us.
Younger youth. Dr. Sally Ride is a success story in every sense of the word. Her life is a living, life-long example of exemplary achievement, as reflected by her many significant awards and successes, not only as an astronaut, but also as a researcher, a writer, and by so much more. But imagine how far Dr. Ride might have gotten, had she decided instead to smoke marijuana or drink alcohol while training as an astronaut. She would never have made it and would have nothing to show for her earlier effort. But she made the right choice and today is one of America ’s most famous and best recognized astronauts. She epitomizes the standard of excellence: “Drug-free! Way to be!”
Older youth. How do you define success? For some, it is earning an advanced degree, for others, success is to acquire fame. For still others, success is achieving a position that allows you to do work that is challenging, stimulating and personally interesting, or perhaps breakthrough research in a field that might benefit mankind. Indeed, there are people who have become famous by achieving each of these various alternatives. Dr. Sally Ride has achieved success by doing all of them, and still more besides. Not one to rest on her laurels, she continues to work in new areas, and has been recognized several times, accordingly. By contrast, how many people become famous by abusing drugs or alcohol? Some have claimed in the past that they used drugs to expand their minds and heighten their awareness. But they did not succeed; instead, they succumbed to the drugs and the diseases that their drug use brought on. Dr. Sally Ride knows full well that drugs and alcohol have no place among those who work and strive for personal and professional development. The only shortcut that drugs lead to is failure and suffering. In other words, living drug-free is the way to be!
This curriculum is sponsored by the Drug Demand Reduction
Program of the Civil Air Patrol National Headquarters
Maxwell AFB, Alabama.
