Quotes By Sally Ride
Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.
Sally Ride
Even though NASA tries to simulate launch, and we practice in simulators, it's not the same - it's not even close to the same.
Sally Ride
The astronauts who came in with me in my astronaut class - my class had 29 men and 6 women - those men were all very used to working with women.
Sally Ride
For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.
Sally Ride
But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.
Sally Ride
It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.
Sally Ride
I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.
Sally Ride
I think eventually private enterprise will be able to send people into orbit, but I suspect initially it's going to have to be with NASA's help.
Sally Ride
I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.
Sally Ride
Some astronauts sleep in sort of beds - compartments that you can open up and crawl into and then close up, almost like a little bedroom.
Sally Ride
The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.
Sally Ride
Well, we spend an awful lot of our time working and doing experiments. It's very busy up on the shuttle.
Sally Ride
So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion - because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.
Sally Ride
It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!
Sally Ride
On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.
Sally Ride
My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane.
Sally Ride
I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.
Sally Ride
So I saw many planets, and they looked just a little bit brighter than they do from Earth.
Sally Ride
I've discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there's no need to explain it to them. The other half can't understand and I couldn't explain it to them. If someone doesn't know why, I can't explain it.
Sally Ride
We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form.
Sally Ride