The Sounds of Progress, San Diego: Sally Ride
Stephanie: Hello San Diego, this is Stephanie.
Sadie: And Sadie, here to bring you your daily news.
Stephanie: The weather is well....pretty much typical for San Diego.
Sadie: Remarkable new movies are coming out by the dozens and sports teams for the most part are doing alright.
Stephanie: With only 162 more days until Dr. Sally Ride's birthday.
Sadie: Only 162 more days, what, are you crazy? That's a really long time.
Stephanie: That may be but Sally Ride is a really important person, she was the first woman to go to space.
Sadie: Oh yeah, she grew up in Encino, Californian, Right?
Stephanie: Right. She loves math and science mainly because her parents valued education and tried to make learning fun. Ride also enjoyed sports such as, swimming and playing baseball in the street. She even started playing tennis at age ten; Sally became a really great tennis player.
Sadie: She latter won a scholarship to Swarthmore College, however Dr. Ride dropped out because she wanted to pursue her dreams to become a professional tennis player.
Stephanie: Sally stopped after three months of training to go back to college because she didn't believe that she was good enough for the big times. So Ride enrolled at Stanford University, and since Dr. Ride was smart she fit in easily at Stanford. By the time Sally was 27 she already had two bachelor degrees and a master's degree.
Sadie: Gee-shes....she really was smart.
Stephanie: Yeah. When Sally read about NASA's call for astronauts in her college's newspaper she applied, along with 8000 other candidates.
Sadie: 35 people were chosen, only six out of those 35 people were women, one of those six was Sally Ride.
Stephanie: Sally trained for almost four years. Her training included water survival, parachute jumping, radio communication and navigation.
Sadie: Dang!
Stephanie: Yeah, I know. Her favorite was flight training; she enjoyed it so much that it became a hobby.
Sadie: Ride was finally able to go to space in 1983 on the Challenger STS-7. Her next flight after that was on the Challenger STS- 41G. She was in space for a grand total of....
Stephanie &
Sadie: Bum-bum-Ba-da -bum....
Sadie: 343 hours.
Stephanie: Ride was preparing for her next flight when the Challenger exploded in 1986. Dr. Ride was selected to investigate the disaster at the Presidential Commission. Sally even became the assistant to the administrator for long range planning once she moved to the NASA headquarters in Washington D.C.
Sadie: She later retired from NASA in 1987 but has always encouraged women to study math and science and to pursue their dreams. She even joined and inspired clubs that encourage math and science, a few of the clubs are Imaginary Lines and The Sally Ride Club.
Stephanie: Sally has won several awards and was even inducted into the astronaut's hall of fame at the Kennedy Space Center in 2003.
Sadie: Wow, Thanks Stephanie for bringing up the wonderful topic of Dr. Sally Ride.
Stephanie: You're welcome Sadie, any time.
Sadie: And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.