"Sally Ride had not needed a role model, but she knew others did."

Betty Ann Holtzmann Kevles, author of Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space, discusses Sally Ride and her influence on the role of female astronauts.

 

 

 

 

Before NASA chose Sally Ride as the first American woman to fly into space, they selected six women for the Astronaut class of 1978. They were not alike but each knew that she might be the first to fly, and all agreed that none were "typical seventies women." Each had fought gender discrimination in Medical School or Doctoral programs. Ride alone was a "card carrying feminist," a member of NOW. She readily acknowledged that she owed her career to the feminist movement. She had walked through doorways pried open by activist sisters. In 1982, preparing for that first flight, the supply crew was ignorant of feminine hygiene and embarrassed to ask how many tampons they should include in her personal kit, in case she needed them. They chose an excessive number, stringing them together like sausages so that they wouldn’t float away in 0 gravity. In 1985 Sally was at Mission Control when Rhea Seddon fixed a torn sail on an instrument in a satellite she was launching. When a NASA spokesman described her work as “the skill of a good housewife,” Ride corrected him; Seddon’s stiches were the work of a heart surgeon. After Challenger, Ride presented a brilliant assessment of what NASA needed to do to regain public confidence and respect in The Ride Report: “Leadership and America’s Future in Space.” Then Ride, the first American woman in space, was the first to resign. She brought her fame and experience to Sally Ride Science, an organization she founded to show girls that science is cool. She had not needed a role model, but she knew others did. She devoted the rest of her life to providing a model so that the current generation of young women would not have to brave the obstacles of being the first.