Badge, Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), Sally Ride

This ID badge, owned by Dr. Sally K. Ride, designated her as a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB). NASA convened the board to determine the cause of the fatal end of the STS-107 Space Shuttle mission, when the orbiter Columbia disintegrated during reentry on February 1, 2003. Ride had previously served on the Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger tragedy in 1986, and she described the second accident as a disturbing "echo." Ride was the only astronaut to serve on these investigative bodies and the only person to serve on both.

Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she flew on the STS-7 shuttle mission in 1983. Her second and last space mission was STS-41G in 1984. A physicist with a Ph.D., she joined the astronaut corps in 1978 in the first class of astronauts recruited specifically for the Space Shuttle Program. She also led the task force that produced a visionary strategic planning report in 1987, titled “NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space” but known popularly as the "Ride Report."

After she left NASA in 1987, Dr. Ride taught first at Stanford and later at the University of California, San Diego, where she also served as the director of the California Space Institute. Until her death in 2012, she was president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she founded to promote science education.

Dr. Ride’s partner, Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy, donated the badge to the Museum in 2013.