Sally Ride, First American Woman In Space, Is Dead

[jgrahamc]

RIP Sally Ride. She was a personal inspiration as a child because I saw a woman going into space as an indication of the opening up of space to 'normal' people. She was also a scientist and not a military person.

[lotharbot]

> "I saw a woman going into space as an indication of the opening up of space to 'normal' people."

This is one area where the Soviets had us beat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Tereshkova

[kylemaxwell]

This last part is one of the main reasons she was an inspiration to me during my childhood as well. I didn't have enough context to note that her gender did in fact matter, but she spent a great deal of time in educational outreach.

[kadjar]

Sally Ride comes out as a lesbian in her obituary: http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/first-female-us-astrona...