A biography for Sally Ridehasn’t been written yet.
“After the Challenger accident, NASA put in a lot of time to improve the safety of the space shuttle to fix the things that had gone wrong.”
“So I decided on science when I was in college.”
“For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds.”
“We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form.”
“It's no secret that I've been reluctant to use my name for things.”
“Studying whether there's life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there's something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That's something that is almost part of being human, and I'm certain that will continue.”
“So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion - because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.”
“I don't have any nicknames.”
“Different astronauts sleep in different ways.”
“NASA has to approve whatever we wear, so there are clothes to choose from, like space shorts - we wear those a lot - and NASA T-shirts.”
“The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.”
“I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.”
“I had both male and female heroes.”
“I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.”
“It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!”
“All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.”
“Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.”
“The experience of being in space didn't change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.”
“For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences.”
“I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.”