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Sally Ride, America’s First Woman In Space, 1951-2012

Sally Ride, America’s First Woman In Space, has passed away at the age of 61.

Ride’s place in history was assured on June 18, 1983 when she rocketed into space on Challenger’s STS-7 mission with four male crewmates.

The video above was filmed in 2008, 25 years after her ride in space. Ride talks about looking at Earth during her two Shuttle missions and reflects on Earth’s climate changes.

“The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it,” Ride recalled in an interview for the 25th anniversary of her flight in 2008. “That was made pretty clear the day that I was told I was selected as a crew. I was taken up to Chris Kraft’s office. He wanted to have a chat with me and make sure I knew what I was getting into before I went on the crew. I was so dazzled to be on the crew and go into space I remembered very little of what he said.”


via nasa