Mon July 23, 2012 Sally Ride, First American Woman In Space, Is
Dead Originally published on Mon July 23, 2012 5:42 pm In 1983,
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. She blasted
off aboard Challenger, culminating a long journey that started
in 1977 when the Ph.D. candidate answered an ad seeking
astronauts for NASA missions. In a lecture she gave at Berkeley,
Ride said she saw the ad on Page 3 of the student newspaper.
"The moment I saw that ad, I knew that's what I wanted to do,"
she said. Ride died today in La Jolla, Calif., after a 17-month
battle with pancreatic cancer, her company said on its website.
She was 61. According to her official biography, by the time
Ride decided to apply to become an astronaut, she had already
received degrees in physics and English and was on her way to a
Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. According to her NASA
biography, Ride went back into space in October of 1984. She was
assigned to another mission after that, but it was scrapped
after the shuttle