The Sally Ride Papers reflect Ride's careers as a student, astronaut, physicist, professor, author, and CEO of Sally Ride Science. This collection consists of material gathered by Sally Ride over the course of her life. This material is particularly rich in training materials from her astronaut days, but also provides significant insight into her career in academia and her interest and support of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education. The bulk of this collection consists of materials related to Ride's professional work. This includes correspondence, memoranda, meeting minutes, reports and papers, notes, speeches, photographs, brochures, pamphlets, programs, newsletters, newspaper and magazine articles, and miscellaneous materials. Materials of a personal nature were retained by her family and therefore do not figure in this collection.
Sally Ride (1951-2012) was the first American woman to enter space. With undergraduate degrees in English and physics, she completed a master's and Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. In 1978, she was selected by NASA into the space program. Ride served as CapCom for Shuttle flights STS-2 and STS-3 before being the first American woman in space as a crew member on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7 on June 18, 1983. Ride was the first woman to use the Space Shuttle's robot arm and the first to use the arm to retrieve a satellite. Ride had a second flight in 1984, STS-41G and was scheduled for a third flight when the Challenger disaster occurred. She was then named to the Rogers Commission which investigated the accident, and after that investigation was completed, she was assigned to NASA headquarters in Washington DC where she authored the "NASA Leadership and America's Future in Space" report (commonly referred to as the Ride Report). In 1987, Ride left NASA to work at the Stanford University Center of International Security and Arms Control. In 1989, Ride became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the Director of the California Space Institute. Ride led the public outreach efforts of the ISS EarthKam and GRAIL MoonKAM projects, in cooperation with UCSD and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which enabled middle school students to study imagery of the Earth and moon. In 2003 she served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Sally cofounded, along with her partner Tam O'Shaughnessy, Sally Ride Science which created science programs and publications for students, with a particular focus on girls' education. Also with O'Shaughnessy, she co-wrote books on space aimed at encouraging children to study science. Ride received numerous awards, including, posthumously, the Medal of Freedom. Note: Please do not describe the images, photographs, or maps that appear in this project. We are only seeking transcriptions.
