Sally Ride

Sally Ride

Introduction Half a million people cheered when Sally Ride took off at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The space shuttle Challenger shot into space on June 18, 1983. Sally was the first American woman in space. And she was the youngest American astronaut, male or female, at age 32.

Sally and four other astronauts were strapped inside the space shuttle. The shuttle was attached to a huge fuel tank. Two smaller rocket boosters were mounted onto the fuel tank. They helped power the shuttle into space. The tank and boosters dropped into the ocean after they used up their fuel. In 44 minutes and 27 seconds, the Challenger was circling the Earth.

Sally was the flight engineer on board. During the time in space she and John Fabian, another scientist, worked on forty experiments. They also tested a 15-meter (50-ft) robot arm. It was used to pick up broken satellites in space. The whole crew returned to Earth in six days. They had traveled 4 million kilometers (2. 5 million mi)!

Growing Up Sally was born on May 26, 1951. Two years later, her parents, Dale and Joyce Ride, had another daughter, Karen. The family lived in Encino, California. The planets, stars, and galaxies always fascinated Sally. Yet she never thought about becoming an astronaut. When Sally was nine, the whole family spent a year traveling in Europe. She started to get an idea of how big the world was. In high school, she was very interested in science. Sally loved sports. She worked hard at tennis, often winning big matches. She went on to college and earned degrees in physics and literature. She even earned a Ph. D. , making her Dr. Sally Ride. Her field was astrophysics-the study of stars and other bodies in space.

Early Astronaut Training One day Sally saw an ad recruiting NASA astronauts. NASAis short for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA was looking for the very best people to learn about space travel. Sally was chosen for the 1978 NASA astronaut class. She was very proud. Two women from the Soviet Union had already been in space. She wanted to be the first American woman in space.