March 28, 2024 • 12 mins
In celebration of Women's History Month, discover the extraordinary life and legacy of Sally Ride, the pioneering astronaut who shattered barriers and inspired generations. In this video, we delve into Ride's remarkable journey as the first American woman in space, breaking through the glass ceiling of space exploration. Explore her groundbreaking missions aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger and her contributions to science and education. From her historic achievements to her enduring impact on STEM fields and gender equality, Ride's story continues to inspire and empower. Join us as we celebrate the trailblazing spirit and enduring legacy of Sally Ride.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A shout out to our newest Patreon donors Luca from
Saint Petersburg, Florida, Henry and Griffin from North Carolina, and
Christo and Emma from West Lynne, Oregon. If you'd like
to donate to Bedtime History, go to bedtimei History stories
dot com and click on donate in the menu to
donate via Patreon. Did you ever find something you wanted
(00:23):
to try so badly that it was all you thought about.
Maybe you wanted to hit a home run, or sing
like your favorite pop star, or learn to juggle. If
you tried that thing, and I hope you did as
long as it wasn't too dangerous, you might have found
out that it was a little harder than you expected.
Maybe you struggled at first, Maybe it suddenly didn't seem
(00:43):
as fun as you thought. Or maybe the thing was
so cool that you just had to keep going. You
practiced and practiced, asked other people who knew how to
do the thing. Maybe you eventually did it. Whether or
not you hit the home run, sing that song, or
learn to juggle, you probably learned something about yourself. You
might have learned that it feels amazing to see your
(01:04):
hard work pay off, or you might have learned that
you hated juggling and we'd rather spend your time learning
to skateboard. Both are important things to learn about yourself.
Everyone spends some time learning what they like and what
they're capable of. Sometimes they learn that what they are
capable of isn't necessarily what they like, and something else
(01:26):
is calling them. This is what happened to Sally Ride.
Before we can get to what happened, though, let's go
back to southern California in the year nineteen fifty one.
This was the year Sally was born to Dale and
Carol Ride. As a child, Sally's dream job was to
play baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers. She was athletic
(01:48):
and was often chosen first for baseball teams. No women
played Major League baseball at the time, but this didn't
matter to Sally. Dale and Carol raised her and her sister,
who was nicknamed Bear, to explain and try anything that
interested them. To Sally, this meant playing sports and stargazing
through a telescope with her father. Her favorite constellation was
(02:10):
O Ryan. Many people in the nineteen fifties thought of
these as boy things, but Sally knew they were also
girl things. When she was nine, Sally's family traveled to Europe.
Between seeing the amazing sights, Sally played tennis for the
first time on the trip. Just like that, Sally was hooked.
Tennis became the center of her life. When they got
(02:33):
back to the United States, Dale and Carol got Sally
a tennis coach, and she began competing. Before long, she
was ranked in the top twenty players under twelve in
southern California. Tennis also opened other doors for Sally. A
private high school gave her a scholarship to play for
their team. In high school, Sally rediscovered her love of science.
(02:56):
One teacher, doctor Elizabeth Mamertz, helped her see that there
were opportunities for her in science. At the time, there
weren't many women who got advanced degrees in science, but
doctor Mammarty's had a PhD in human physiology. Sally was
amazed by how smart and curious her teacher was and
how she approached every problem carefully and methodically, like a puzzle.
(03:22):
After high school, tennis again helped Sally find a place
at school. She headed to Swarthmore College to study physics
and play on the tennis team. Soon after arriving, though,
Sally's mind began to wander to new possibilities. She was
excelling at tennis. She won all her college matches and
even became the Eastern Intercollegiate Women single champion. Sally decided
(03:47):
she wanted to try to become a professional tennis player.
She packed up her bags and left Pennsylvania to return
to southern California. Back in sunny California, Sally practiced every
day for hours, year round, but soon she realized she'd
need to train even more in order to make it
as a pro. Her body ached, she was tired. Playing
(04:10):
tennis wasn't as fun when she had to do it
eight hours a day in order to compete, Sally decided
to return to college full time. She headed to Stanford University,
about a six hour drive from Los Angeles. There, she
reacquainted herself with her other childhood passion, science. She studied physics,
how stars and planets work, and even lasers. This time,
(04:34):
Sally was sure she had made the right choice about
her future. In fact, she stayed at Stanford an extra
five years to earn her PhD in physics. But even
as Sally focused more on physics, she was still open
to new opportunities. One morning in nineteen seventy seven, shortly
before she finished her PhD, a huge opportunity stared her
(04:57):
in the face when she opened her morning paper. It
was the kind of opportunity that made all her past
hobbies and interests fall into place, even though she could
have never known this opportunity would come along. It was
perfect for Sally's background as a sports loving physicist. In
the paper was an ad NASA was recruiting new astronauts
(05:19):
to fly in the space Shuttle program, and for the
first time they were accepting applications from women. Sally had
expected to get a job as a college teacher, but
the chance to be an astronaut doesn't come along every day,
and Sally was excited by the possibility of actually visiting
space after studying the stars and planets and gazing up
(05:40):
at Orion on so many nights, and astronauts need to
be in great physical shape too. All her years of
playing tennis would be an advantage. NASA was overdue in
sending women to space. In fact, all the astronauts until
this time had been men. Many Air Force pilots Russia
(06:01):
had sent a woman to space in nineteen sixty three. Now,
in addition to recruiting pilots, NASA was opening the astronaut
program to anyone with training in science and engineering. They
got thousands of applications. Out of all those applicants, Sally
and five other women were chosen to train as astronauts.
Not only were the first women chosen to be part
(06:23):
of the Space Shuttle program, the class of thirty five
men and women included the first Asian Americans and African
American astronauts. NASA was impressed by Sally. She was athletic
and strong, committed and smart. Years of playing competitive tennis
had taught her how to keep cool under pressure. But
(06:44):
even though Sally had the right stuff to be an astronaut,
there was a lot to learn. She had to know
Space Shuttle systems inside and out. She learned about geology, oceanography,
and computer science since she would need to perform all
sorts of experiments in space. The astronaut candidates learned to
fly supersonic jets. Though most of them wouldn't actually need
(07:05):
to fly at the Shuttle, NASA still used professional pilots
for that. It was important to know how it worked.
In case there was ever an emergency. Finally, in nineteen
eighty two, after years of training and working on projects
and Shuttle missions from the ground, Sally got that call
all astronauts are eager for. NASA had assigned her to
(07:25):
a mission. She would go to space in nineteen eighty
three as a mission specialist on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Sally would have a whole year to prepare for the mission.
As part of her work on the ground for NASA,
Sally had helped design a robotic arm that would move
things like satellites in and out of the Space Shuttle's
cargo bay. On her mission, Sally would use the arm
(07:47):
to place a satellite outside in space. It would fly
alongside the Shuttle for a few hours, taking pictures and
doing experiments. Then Sally would use the robotic arm to
grab the satellite and pull it back into the Shuttle.
It was an exciting project for Sallie, but she was
disappointed to find that news reporters weren't very interested in it. Instead,
(08:08):
they always asked her questions about what it would be
like for a woman in space, which you were make
up in space, would should be able to have children
after going into space, would she cry if she made
a mistake? Understandably, Sally found these questions annoying at best,
even insulting. Why couldn't reporters ask her about the actual mission,
the science should be doing, or the amazing robotic arms
(08:30):
she designed, instead of obsessing over her gender. But Sally
kept her focus on training and ignored the rude questions.
She made sure she knew every step of every task
she needed to do. During launch, in space and on
landing on June eighteenth, nineteen eighty three, Sallie was ready
to lift off. The mission was a success. The crew
(08:54):
performed experiments and the robotic arm worked beautifully. But besides
conducting experiments and gaining experience in space, Sally realized something
far more profound. As she looked out the Space Shuttle
window for the first time, she noticed something that astonished her.
She said this, It looked as if someone had taken
(09:14):
a royal blue crayon and just traced along the Earth's horizon.
And then I realized that that blue line, that really
thin royal blue line, was Earth's atmosphere, and that was
all there was of it. And it's so clear from
that perspective, how fragile, our existence is. Sally flew on
another mission two years later, again on the Challenger. Sally
(09:37):
hoped she'd be able to fly again after her second mission,
but in nineteen eighty six, a terrible tragedy through her
hopes and the whole Shuttle program into doubt. The Space
Shuttle Challenger, which Sally had flown on twice, exploded a
few minutes after liftoff. Seven astronauts were killed, including some
Sally had trained with. Sally was devastated, but she was
(09:59):
one of the best people to help figure out what
went wrong. NASA canceled all its Space Shuttle missions for
years while Sally and a committee of other experts investigated
the accident. They found that cold weather that morning in
Florida caused a part to break during the flight. By
this time, Sally realized she would probably never fly on
another mission. She stayed at NASA another year after the investigation,
(10:23):
helping them plan for the future, but in nineteen eighty
seven she realized it was time to leave. Sally went
back to Stanford University to work as a physics professor.
She also reconnected with the childhood friend tam O'Shaughnessy. The
two fell in love and would spend the next twenty
seven years together. Tam was also a scientist, a biologist,
(10:44):
and she loved sports and exercise too. Sally and Tam
also shared a passion for encouraging children, especially girls, to
explore science and technology. They wrote books and started a
foundation together that offered science summer camps and science festivals.
Sally even started a program that let kids in middle
school control a satellite launched into space on the Shuttle,
(11:08):
taking pictures of Earth from hundreds of miles above the ground.
In twenty eleven, Sally passed away at her home in California.
A year later, President Obama awarded Sally a Presidential Medal
of Honor for her accomplishments. Tam accepted the ward on
her behalf. People change their minds sometimes about what they
want to do. New dreams can take hold. But the
(11:31):
most important thing to do is if you want to
make a dream come true, is to act. Find out
what you need to do to actually make that dream
a reality, and then do it. You may find that
you don't like the doing as much as the dream,
just like Sally Ride did with pro tennis. But like Sally,
if you try enough things, Eventually you'll find out the
right thing for you. And you never know when an
(11:53):
opportunity will come along that requires your unique combination of talents, skills,
and knowledge, So keep exploring. We hope you enjoyed this
episode about Sally Ride. Be sure to tune in next
Monday for a new episode.
A shout out to our newest Patreon donors Luca from
Saint Petersburg, Florida, Henry and Griffin from North Carolina, and
Christo and Emma from West Lynne, Oregon. If you'd like
to donate to Bedtime History, go to bedtimei History stories
dot com and click on donate in the menu to
donate via Patreon. Did you ever find something you wanted
(00:23):
to try so badly that it was all you thought about.
Maybe you wanted to hit a home run, or sing
like your favorite pop star, or learn to juggle. If
you tried that thing, and I hope you did as
long as it wasn't too dangerous, you might have found
out that it was a little harder than you expected.
Maybe you struggled at first, Maybe it suddenly didn't seem
(00:43):
as fun as you thought. Or maybe the thing was
so cool that you just had to keep going. You
practiced and practiced, asked other people who knew how to
do the thing. Maybe you eventually did it. Whether or
not you hit the home run, sing that song, or
learn to juggle, you probably learned something about yourself. You
might have learned that it feels amazing to see your
(01:04):
hard work pay off, or you might have learned that
you hated juggling and we'd rather spend your time learning
to skateboard. Both are important things to learn about yourself.
Everyone spends some time learning what they like and what
they're capable of. Sometimes they learn that what they are
capable of isn't necessarily what they like, and something else
(01:26):
is calling them. This is what happened to Sally Ride.
Before we can get to what happened, though, let's go
back to southern California in the year nineteen fifty one.
This was the year Sally was born to Dale and
Carol Ride. As a child, Sally's dream job was to
play baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers. She was athletic
(01:48):
and was often chosen first for baseball teams. No women
played Major League baseball at the time, but this didn't
matter to Sally. Dale and Carol raised her and her sister,
who was nicknamed Bear, to explain and try anything that
interested them. To Sally, this meant playing sports and stargazing
through a telescope with her father. Her favorite constellation was
(02:10):
O Ryan. Many people in the nineteen fifties thought of
these as boy things, but Sally knew they were also
girl things. When she was nine, Sally's family traveled to Europe.
Between seeing the amazing sights, Sally played tennis for the
first time on the trip. Just like that, Sally was hooked.
Tennis became the center of her life. When they got
(02:33):
back to the United States, Dale and Carol got Sally
a tennis coach, and she began competing. Before long, she
was ranked in the top twenty players under twelve in
southern California. Tennis also opened other doors for Sally. A
private high school gave her a scholarship to play for
their team. In high school, Sally rediscovered her love of science.
(02:56):
One teacher, doctor Elizabeth Mamertz, helped her see that there
were opportunities for her in science. At the time, there
weren't many women who got advanced degrees in science, but
doctor Mammarty's had a PhD in human physiology. Sally was
amazed by how smart and curious her teacher was and
how she approached every problem carefully and methodically, like a puzzle.
(03:22):
After high school, tennis again helped Sally find a place
at school. She headed to Swarthmore College to study physics
and play on the tennis team. Soon after arriving, though,
Sally's mind began to wander to new possibilities. She was
excelling at tennis. She won all her college matches and
even became the Eastern Intercollegiate Women single champion. Sally decided
(03:47):
she wanted to try to become a professional tennis player.
She packed up her bags and left Pennsylvania to return
to southern California. Back in sunny California, Sally practiced every
day for hours, year round, but soon she realized she'd
need to train even more in order to make it
as a pro. Her body ached, she was tired. Playing
(04:10):
tennis wasn't as fun when she had to do it
eight hours a day in order to compete, Sally decided
to return to college full time. She headed to Stanford University,
about a six hour drive from Los Angeles. There, she
reacquainted herself with her other childhood passion, science. She studied physics,
how stars and planets work, and even lasers. This time,
(04:34):
Sally was sure she had made the right choice about
her future. In fact, she stayed at Stanford an extra
five years to earn her PhD in physics. But even
as Sally focused more on physics, she was still open
to new opportunities. One morning in nineteen seventy seven, shortly
before she finished her PhD, a huge opportunity stared her
(04:57):
in the face when she opened her morning paper. It
was the kind of opportunity that made all her past
hobbies and interests fall into place, even though she could
have never known this opportunity would come along. It was
perfect for Sally's background as a sports loving physicist. In
the paper was an ad NASA was recruiting new astronauts
(05:19):
to fly in the space Shuttle program, and for the
first time they were accepting applications from women. Sally had
expected to get a job as a college teacher, but
the chance to be an astronaut doesn't come along every day,
and Sally was excited by the possibility of actually visiting
space after studying the stars and planets and gazing up
(05:40):
at Orion on so many nights, and astronauts need to
be in great physical shape too. All her years of
playing tennis would be an advantage. NASA was overdue in
sending women to space. In fact, all the astronauts until
this time had been men. Many Air Force pilots Russia
(06:01):
had sent a woman to space in nineteen sixty three. Now,
in addition to recruiting pilots, NASA was opening the astronaut
program to anyone with training in science and engineering. They
got thousands of applications. Out of all those applicants, Sally
and five other women were chosen to train as astronauts.
Not only were the first women chosen to be part
(06:23):
of the Space Shuttle program, the class of thirty five
men and women included the first Asian Americans and African
American astronauts. NASA was impressed by Sally. She was athletic
and strong, committed and smart. Years of playing competitive tennis
had taught her how to keep cool under pressure. But
(06:44):
even though Sally had the right stuff to be an astronaut,
there was a lot to learn. She had to know
Space Shuttle systems inside and out. She learned about geology, oceanography,
and computer science since she would need to perform all
sorts of experiments in space. The astronaut candidates learned to
fly supersonic jets. Though most of them wouldn't actually need
(07:05):
to fly at the Shuttle, NASA still used professional pilots
for that. It was important to know how it worked.
In case there was ever an emergency. Finally, in nineteen
eighty two, after years of training and working on projects
and Shuttle missions from the ground, Sally got that call
all astronauts are eager for. NASA had assigned her to
(07:25):
a mission. She would go to space in nineteen eighty
three as a mission specialist on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Sally would have a whole year to prepare for the mission.
As part of her work on the ground for NASA,
Sally had helped design a robotic arm that would move
things like satellites in and out of the Space Shuttle's
cargo bay. On her mission, Sally would use the arm
(07:47):
to place a satellite outside in space. It would fly
alongside the Shuttle for a few hours, taking pictures and
doing experiments. Then Sally would use the robotic arm to
grab the satellite and pull it back into the Shuttle.
It was an exciting project for Sallie, but she was
disappointed to find that news reporters weren't very interested in it. Instead,
(08:08):
they always asked her questions about what it would be
like for a woman in space, which you were make
up in space, would should be able to have children
after going into space, would she cry if she made
a mistake? Understandably, Sally found these questions annoying at best,
even insulting. Why couldn't reporters ask her about the actual mission,
the science should be doing, or the amazing robotic arms
(08:30):
she designed, instead of obsessing over her gender. But Sally
kept her focus on training and ignored the rude questions.
She made sure she knew every step of every task
she needed to do. During launch, in space and on
landing on June eighteenth, nineteen eighty three, Sallie was ready
to lift off. The mission was a success. The crew
(08:54):
performed experiments and the robotic arm worked beautifully. But besides
conducting experiments and gaining experience in space, Sally realized something
far more profound. As she looked out the Space Shuttle
window for the first time, she noticed something that astonished her.
She said this, It looked as if someone had taken
(09:14):
a royal blue crayon and just traced along the Earth's horizon.
And then I realized that that blue line, that really
thin royal blue line, was Earth's atmosphere, and that was
all there was of it. And it's so clear from
that perspective, how fragile, our existence is. Sally flew on
another mission two years later, again on the Challenger. Sally
(09:37):
hoped she'd be able to fly again after her second mission,
but in nineteen eighty six, a terrible tragedy through her
hopes and the whole Shuttle program into doubt. The Space
Shuttle Challenger, which Sally had flown on twice, exploded a
few minutes after liftoff. Seven astronauts were killed, including some
Sally had trained with. Sally was devastated, but she was
(09:59):
one of the best people to help figure out what
went wrong. NASA canceled all its Space Shuttle missions for
years while Sally and a committee of other experts investigated
the accident. They found that cold weather that morning in
Florida caused a part to break during the flight. By
this time, Sally realized she would probably never fly on
another mission. She stayed at NASA another year after the investigation,
(10:23):
helping them plan for the future, but in nineteen eighty
seven she realized it was time to leave. Sally went
back to Stanford University to work as a physics professor.
She also reconnected with the childhood friend tam O'Shaughnessy. The
two fell in love and would spend the next twenty
seven years together. Tam was also a scientist, a biologist,
(10:44):
and she loved sports and exercise too. Sally and Tam
also shared a passion for encouraging children, especially girls, to
explore science and technology. They wrote books and started a
foundation together that offered science summer camps and science festivals.
Sally even started a program that let kids in middle
school control a satellite launched into space on the Shuttle,
(11:08):
taking pictures of Earth from hundreds of miles above the ground.
In twenty eleven, Sally passed away at her home in California.
A year later, President Obama awarded Sally a Presidential Medal
of Honor for her accomplishments. Tam accepted the ward on
her behalf. People change their minds sometimes about what they
want to do. New dreams can take hold. But the
(11:31):
most important thing to do is if you want to
make a dream come true, is to act. Find out
what you need to do to actually make that dream
a reality, and then do it. You may find that
you don't like the doing as much as the dream,
just like Sally Ride did with pro tennis. But like Sally,
if you try enough things, Eventually you'll find out the
right thing for you. And you never know when an
(11:53):
opportunity will come along that requires your unique combination of talents, skills,
and knowledge, So keep exploring. We hope you enjoyed this
episode about Sally Ride. Be sure to tune in next
Monday for a new episode.
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