Sally Kristen Ride was an American physicist and astronaut. She was the first American woman in space, one of the first Americans to travel to space twice, and the first American woman to chair a NASA commission. Ride served on the staff of the NASA Lewis Research Center responsible for developing launch vehicles and spacecraft for Project Gemini. She was also responsible for developing the Spacelab life science research module used on STS-7, STS-8, and STS-10
Read more
After STS-7, she was assigned to work for NASA's Office of Public Affairs as a press officer. In 1978, Ride became a member of the NASA Astronaut Office. That same year, she was selected as one of twelve astronauts from more than 7,000 applicants for NASA's new Space Shuttle program.
In 1984, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she flew as part of a joint U.S./Soviet mission aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger crewed by Guy Gardner and Paul Weitz. On June 12, 1986, Ride made her second space flight as a payload specialist aboard Challenger STS-51L. Her third spaceflight came in June 1989 as a crew member on STS-37 aboard Discovery which deployed two satellites for use in global positioning system (GPS) receivers.
She retired from NASA in July 1993 after serving as chief of the astronaut office at Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas then moved to Seattle Washington where she died on July 23rd 2015 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 years old