Today in Technology History
An event that occurred on this date in the history of technology.
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June 18
Yesterday we wrote about a great female aviator, Amelia Earhart. Today and tomorrow, our subject will be other women who flew -- in space.
Sally Kirsten Ride was born in California in 1951. Although she considered a career as a tennis pro, she instead plunged into the study of physics, getting a Ph.D. from Stanford in 1977. When NASA started recruiting new astronauts in the 1970s, Ride was one of over 8,300 applicants. Just 35 candidates were picked, and Ride was one of the six women to make the cut.
She trained hard and learned how to fly, and for a couple of the early space shuttle missions she served as CapCom (the person on the ground at mission control who talks to the astronauts). She was then selected to serve aboard Challenger for the seventh space shuttle mission, which began exactly two decades ago, on June 18, 1983. During her six days in space, Ride worked on several experiments and performed some tests of the shuttle's robotic arm.
That mission made Ride the first American woman to enter space, as well as the youngest American to do so. She was instantly famous, but instead of letting the fuss go to her head, she kept working. In 1984, she went up on Challenger again, thus becoming the first American woman to make two spaceflights. Ride later became the only astronaut on the panel that investigated the 1986 Challenger accident, just as she is today the only astronaut on the panel investigating this year's Columbia accident.
Dr. Ride's main job nowadays is at the University of California, San Diego, where her chief concentrations are space and lasers.
Today, by the way, women comprise about one-fifth of NASA's corps of active astronauts.
Related links:
Click here to read NASA's official biography of Sally Ride.
Click here and here to learn about Dr. Ride's two space shuttle missions.
Click here to visit Ride's current homepage at the University of California.
Click here to visit the official "Women of NASA" page.
Click here to see NASA's current roster of active and management astronauts.
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