Ride, Sally Kristen (1951-2012), was a United States astronaut who became the first American woman to travel in space. In June 1983, she and astronauts Robert L. Crippen, John M. Fabian, Frederick H. Hauck, and Norman E. Thagard made a six-day flight on the space shuttle Challenger. During the mission, Ride and Fabian launched communications satellites for the Canadian and Indonesian governments and conducted experiments involving the production of pharmaceuticals. In addition, they tested the shuttle’s remote manipulator arm. They used the arm to release a satellite and then retrieve it and place it in the shuttle’s cargo area.
Ride made her second shuttle flight in October 1984. On this mission, she used the remote manipulator arm to launch a satellite designed to measure the sun’s effect on Earth’s weather.
Ride was born on May 26, 1951, in Los Angeles. In 1978, she received a Ph.D. degree in physics from Stanford University and became an astronaut candidate. On Jan. 28, 1986, Challenger broke apart shortly after take-off, killing all seven members of its crew. In February, Ride was appointed to the presidential commission that was established to investigate the accident. Ride resigned from the astronaut program in 1987 to accept a fellowship at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego and the director of the California Space Institute. On Feb. 1, 2003, the shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Ride served on a federal board that investigated the accident. Ride died on July 23, 2012, in La Jolla, California, after a months-long battle with pancreatic cancer.
