She is known for being the first American woman and being the overall third person to travel into space. Sally has brought the world to realize that men are not the only great people out there and that woman can be amazing too. Sally Ride is remembered as a national hero who changed the fate of America’s space program. She has taught people to reach for the stars and to keep on trying no matter what. Sally Ride’s childhood was peaceful and joyful. Sally Ride was born on May 26, 1951, in Los Angeles, Encino California. Even when she was young, Sally enjoyed science and math and she was a bright student. Surprisingly she also enjoyed playing tennis and was …show more content…
There were over 8,00 applicants, and Sally was one of the many people who applied. Only 25 people would be hired, and luckily Sally was one of the few people to get chosen by NASA to work as an astronaut. After she was hired, she went to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas to train. Sally took various physical tests, some of them being weightlessness training, parachute jumping, and water training, for example, scuba diving and treading water in a heavy flight suit. Afterward, she was trained to be an expert on space travel learned the controls used within the space shuttle. For Sally’s first assignments, she did not go to outer space, but instead worked as a capsule communicator, and also helped construct the Space Shuttle. Finally after lots of intense training, in 1979 Sally finally became an official astronaut for NASA. Sally’s first mission going to outer space was called the Space Shuttle Challenge. On the day of June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first ever woman to travel into space. She traveled with many other astronauts. The mission lasted 147 hours, and at the end of her mission, she said that it was the most fun she ever had. The year after Sally’s first mission, 1984, Sally went on a second mission this time lasting 197 hours with 7 crew members which were the most amount of people to be recorded on one