Sally Ride

Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on June 18, 1983, flying aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. A physicist by training, she broke a barrier in a field that had been almost entirely male, two decades after the first male American astronauts.

Ride had answered a newspaper ad seeking astronauts and was selected in NASA's first class to include women. On her shuttle mission she operated the robotic arm to deploy satellites, and she flew a second mission the next year before the Challenger disaster grounded the fleet.

She faced the casual sexism of her era with characteristic composure — fielding questions about whether spaceflight would affect her reproductive organs or whether she cried under stress. Her flight made her an icon and an inspiration to a generation of girls considering careers in science.

After NASA, Ride became a physics professor and devoted herself to encouraging young people, especially girls, to pursue science and engineering. She remains a landmark figure in both the space program and the long opening of American science to women.