Sally Ride America's first woman in space

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Summary

Sally Ride made history as the first American woman in space. A member of the first astronaut class to include women, NASA chose her for the seventh shuttle mission. After a second flight, Ride served on the panels investigating the Challenger explosion and the Columbia disintegration that killed all aboard. Lynn Sherr writes about Ride's scrupulously guarded personal life, with exclusive access to Ride's partner, her former husband, her family, and countless friends and colleagues.

Published Reviews

Booklist Review: "*Starred Review* When her unexpected death from cancer was announced in 2012, the national outpouring of grief over the loss of Sally Ride was swift and genuine. The subsequent obituary revelation that Ride was a lesbian in a committed relationship for more than a quarter-century was proof of how successfully the icon had guarded her personal life. With the full cooperation of Ride's family and friends, both inside and outside of NASA (including ex-husband and fellow astronaut Steve Hawley), author Sherr pores over Ride's life, from her tennis-star childhood to her college years in the male-dominated field of physics and meteoric rise as America's first woman in space. As familiar as readers believe themselves to be with Ride's story, Sherr has done an impressive job of uncovering the pressures (and sometimes comical missteps) of NASA's macho culture and its approach to the first class of women astronauts, the unparalleled commitment Ride brought to her job, and the zeal with which she embraced her later challenge to broaden science opportunities for girls. This is an intimate and enormously appealing biography of a fascinating woman, a triumph of research and sensitivity that lives up to its subject and will likely move readers to tears in its final, poignant pages.--Mondor, Colleen Copyright 2010 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "When astronaut Dr. Sally Ride died in 2012, the woman who was once the most famous person in the world, shocked many when her obituary revealed that she was survived by her female partner of nearly three decades. Journalist Sherr, a longtime friend of Ride, gets behind the walls of the very guarded and private pioneer in this engrossing biography. Ride's trajectory may have been entirely different if the former top-ranked 1968 college tennis player in the East had pursued the game professionally. But when NASA began recruiting women and minorities in 1976, Ride, who had been the only female student in her undergraduate physics class, beat out 8,000 others to get her spot. It was a heady and historic time, although not without an abundance of sexist and clueless ideas both from NASA (the engineers asking Ride if 100 tampons for a week in space was sufficient) and the press (a reporter infamously asked if she wept when angry). Level-headed and possessed of an optimistic live-in-the-moment attitude, she skillfully navigated such public moments and kept the personal locked away out of view. In the end, Sherr provides a window into one of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Additional Information

Subjects	Ride, Sally Women astronauts United States Biography Astronauts United States Biography Biography & Autobiography Nonfiction Audiobooks.
Publisher	Old Saybrook :Tantor Media, Inc.2014 2014
Edition	Unabridged.
Contributors	Ward, Pam, narrator. OverDrive, Inc.
Participants/Performers	Read by Pam Ward.
Language	English
System Details	Mode of access: World Wide Web. Format: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook Requires OverDrive Media Console 3.0 (Windows) / 1.0 (Mac) / 1.0 (Windows Mobile)
Description	1 audio file : digital
ISBN	9781494523404 149452340X
Other	Classic View