Sally Kristen Ride was born May 26th, 1951 in LA, and came of age during a time for women that was marked by turbulence and radical change. In 1978 she answered the call from NASA for applicants, along with 8,000 other students across the country, and was accepted into their training program. She went on to become the first American woman in space in 1983, flew twice on the Challenger, helped develop the Canadarm, and left NASA in 1987 to pursue a career as a professor of physics at the University of California San Diego. She had one short-lived marriage to fellow astronaut Steve Hawley (1982-1987), and she passed away on July 23rd, 2012 from pancreatic cancer.
Last week, on what would have been her 64th birthday, Google’s doodle was put up in honor of her and all of the amazing contributions she’s made to science. After doing a little bit of digging, I found out that, in addition to her numerous and impressive achievements, Sally Ride was also a lesbian.
So, really, she was the first lesbian in space. This is pretty cool, although the fact that she was a lesbian does not matter in the slightest. It did not affect how successful she was at her job; it didn’t make her any ‘more’ of an astronaut. She was a scientist first, then an astronaut, a wife, a partner, and completely devoted to teaching and learning. Maybe the twelfth or thirteenth defining characteristic about her is that she was a lesbian, although she lived an intensely private life and nobody was actually aware of the fact until much later on. Her sexuality did not define her.
Before her first trip into space, the media bombarded her with sexist questions disguised as curiosity: “How will you keep your hair from flying around in zero gravity?” and “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?” Ride responded with the best possible answer to the nagging, probing questions, stating that she saw herself only one way: as an astronaut. In 1983 she successfully became the first American female astronaut to go into space as a crew member aboard the space shuttle Challenger. On that mission, she was the first person in space to use the robot arm to retrieve a satellite.
Her legacy lives on through her partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy, and Sally Ride Science, a company she co-founded in 2001. Sally Ride Science is responsible for the creation of engaging and entertaining science programs for middle school students, with a primary focus on educating young women and opening the door for them to pursue careers in science. Even in death, she continues to be celebrated: she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor – the highest civilian award in the US, which was presented to Tam – and was also inducted into Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT people and history.
Sally Ride made great strides for women everywhere, regardless of whether or not she was a lesbian. She shook things up and helped re-define what it meant to be a woman. Gone are the days of little white gloves and sitting demurely with our ankles crossed – thanks (in part) to her, women are continuing to do amazing things.
