A biography for Sally Ridehasn’t been written yet.
“One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.”
“For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.”
“But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.”
“The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.”
“I think eventually private enterprise will be able to send people into orbit, but I suspect initially it's going to have to be with NASA's help.”
“I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps.”
“Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.”
“So I saw many planets, and they looked just a little bit brighter than they do from Earth.”
“When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.”
“There are aspects of being the first woman in space that I'm not going to enjoy.”
“The stars don't look bigger, but they do look brighter.”
“The view of Earth is spectacular.”
“The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.”
“I have a lot of common sense. I know what needs to be done and how to approach it. I have an ability to work with people on large enterprises.”
“Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It's posing questions and coming up with a method. It's delving in.”
“You know, I go around the country a lot.”
“Well, we spend an awful lot of our time working and doing experiments. It's very busy up on the shuttle.”
“It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.”
“It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.”
“Some astronauts sleep in sort of beds - compartments that you can open up and crawl into and then close up, almost like a little bedroom.”