Montage, First Six U.S. Women Astronauts, mission patches and photos, Sally Ride

This framed montage honors NASA's first female astronauts and was owned by Dr. Sally K. Ride. A photograph of each of the six women in space is displayed alongside her autograph and first mission patch. Ride appears on the upper left, followed by Judith Resnik, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Anna Lee Fisher, Margaret Rhea Seddon, and Shannon Lucid. These women were chosen during the 1978 astronaut candidate selection, and all had flown by June 1985. The photograph on the bottom is of a space shuttle.

Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she flew aboard STS-7 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 as a part of the first class of astronauts recruited specifically for the Space Shuttle Program. Viewed as a leader in the NASA community, she served on the Rogers Commission after the Challenger disaster in 1986 as well as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) in 2003. 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 retired from NASA in 1987, Dr. Ride taught first at Stanford and later at the University of California, San Diego. Until her death in 2012, she was president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company that promoted science education.

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