Date of Birth	May 26, 1951, in Los Angeles, California
Childhood / Family	Her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Dale B. Ride, reside in Encino, California Marital Status: Single
Education	Graduated from Westlake High School, Los Angeles, California, in 1968; received from Stanford University a bachelor of science in Physics and a bachelor of arts in English in 1973, and master of science and doctorate degrees in Physics in 1975 and 1978
Occupation	She was a writer for children about space travel and exploration.
Space Training / Specialty	Selected for astronaut training in 1978
Contribution to Space Travel	First American woman in space.
Space Missions	Her first flight was aboard that space shuttle Challenger in 1983. Deployed communications satellites for Canada and Indonesia, performed the first satellite deployment and retrieval with the shuttle's robot arm, and conducted materials and pharmaceutical research
Outside Activities	Enjoys tennis, running, volleyball, softball & stamp collecting
Interesting Fact(s)	A talented athlete, she had considered a professional tennis career. In 1986, she was part of the presidential commission investigating the Challenger explosion. Dr. Ride has written a children's book, To Space and Back, describing her experiences in space. Ride wrote two more books, Voyager: An Adventure to the Edge of The Solar System and The Third Planet: Exploring The Earth From Space. She has received the Jefferson Award for Public Service, and has twice been awarded the National Spaceflight Medal.
Status	Dr. Ride is a physicist, and in 1989 joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego, as a physics professor. She is also Director of the California Space Institute, a research institute of the University of California. In 2001 she founded Imaginary Lines, a company aimed at supporting the scientific interests of girls.
Images
Links	http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/ride-sk.html http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/frontiers/ride.html http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96may/ride.html#resources http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=125 http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_ride_sally.htm http://www.who2.com/sallyride.html http://www.chron.com/content/interactive/space/archives/87/870921.html http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/ride.html http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0841865.html

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