Sally K. Ride

Sally Ride was born May 26, 1951 in Los Angeles, California from the proud parents, Joyce Ride who was a teacher and Dr.Dale Ride who was a science professor. Two years later after Sally's birth, another member of the family was born, Karen Ride, who Sally called "Bear".

Sally grew up loving sports and dares. She was usually the only girl on a boy's football team. She only made girl-freinds if she could beat them in a race. She was stubborn and had a mind of her own. No one could force her to do things she didn't want to do.

Because of her tennis skills, Westlake High School, a private high school for girls, offered Sally a scholarship to their school. In college, Sally had a great interest in astronomy and science, it wasn't until she saw that ad in the paper that said NASA wanted woman to join that she decided she wanted to take a challenge. But before she could sign up, Sally had to earn a Ph.d. She worked hard and she earned two Bachelors degrees, one Masters, and one Ph.d. Finally, Sally was able to be a astronaut wanna-be.

Sally was competing against 8,000 other candidates. Finally, NASA chose Sally to become the first American woman astronaut! Sally was going to go up to space as a mission specialist on June 18, 1983. Sally's job in space was to control the robotic arm which picked up and brought down satellites. The mission was to put two satellites in orbit and bring two satellites back to earth. The mission lasted six days and everything went as planned accept on the day of the landing, there was a huge rain cloud on top of Florida which made it impossible to land. The sudden change was to land in California instead.

Before Sally left NASA to continue her private life, she made one last contribution to NASA. She wrote a Ride Report explaining about sending man to Mars, to make new shuttles, and to keep up the good work. Sally Ride made a big difference in woman careers and proved women could do the things that men could do. Thank you Sally Ride.