Sally Ride, first female US astronaut in space

A piece of space exploration history was made in June of 1983, when astronaut Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, when she flew on board  the space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-7. (The first woman in space was the Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who had flown twenty years earlier). Joining NASA in 1978 after answering a newspaper advertisement, she had earlier served as capsule communicator on the ground for two earlier shuttle missions, and had played a role in the development of the robot arm used on the shuttle.

Even by 1983, attitudes had not shifted completely and Ride was subjected to some embarrassing questions from the press of the day such as: 'Do you plan to wear a bra or make-up in space?', or 'Do you cry on the job?'. Ride was a highly-qualified scientist, having a Ph.D. in physics and although she dealt with the questions politely, she was irked by the attitudes, saying that it was 'too bad' that the media made such a big deal of her flight. 

The STS-7 mission deployed two communications satellites, conducted some pharmaceutical experiments, and Ride made another first by becoming the first woman to use the robot arm in space, using it to retrieve a satellite. She would make one further space flight in 1984, aboard the same craft, and was in training for a third, when the Challenger disaster happened in early 1986. Subsequently, she was named on the Rogers Commission investigating the disaster and was then assigned to NASA headquarters, before leaving the organisation in 1987.  During the investigation into the Challenger disaster, she gave public support to engineer Roger Boisjoly, who had expressed concern over possible failure of the so-called 'O-rings', seals on the rocket boosters, could fail in cold weather. His concerns were dismissed by both NASA and his own bosses at the time.

After NASA, she worked for a time at Stanford University before becoming a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. In 2003, she found herself on another investigation into a shuttle disaster, when she served on the board investigating the breakup of Columbia during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

Sally Ride died age 61 on 23rd July 2012, having fought a battle against pancreatic cancer for over a year. Current US President Barack Obama announced in May of this year that the Presidential Medal of Freedom would be awarded posthumously, and is to be presented to Ride's family later in 2013.

A news report from 1983, reporting on the STS-7 mission including Sally Ride, is below:

 

The song 'Mustang Sally' with its refrain of 'Ride, Sally, Ride' became popular again in 1983 as a result of Ride's spaceflight; it is presented below.