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Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Science
- Boston Globe
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space 42 years ago today. Here's how weather played a role then and now.
For the launch to be successful, the weather had to be near perfect, and the east coast of Central Florida was basking in amazing conditions that morning. Liftoff commenced without delay with temperatures in the low 70s and near-still wind. This NASA file photo dated June 1983 shows America's first woman astronaut Sally Ride, as she communicates with ground controllers from the flight deck during the six-day space mission of the Challenger. Ride, the first US woman to fly in space, died on July 23, 2012 after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 61. - But bad weather in Florida upon return to Earth June 24, 1983, forced Challenger to land three time zones away at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in the Mojave desert, where still conditions were certain, especially for a powerless glider that depended on a stable atmosphere to land comfortably. The base also provided very wide runways for a smooth Challenger landing. Sally Ride and STS-7 returns safely in California after bad weather in Florida changed the landing location. NASA Advertisement NASA has strict parameters in place when it comes to weather to 'greenlight' a launch — most of which are obvious. Wind speed and direction need to be light and steady. High winds of 30 miles per hour or more will usually scrap flight plans for the day, and any sudden changes in wind direction may cause issues as the rocket moves vertically through the atmosphere. (Back when Sally Ride was breaking barriers in the Space Shuttle program, launches were delayed or canceled when wind speeds were as low as 22 miles per hour.) Advertisement High visibility with little to no cloud cover is also necessary. Any instability in the atmosphere, albeit minor, can cause lightning when a rocket burning copious amounts of fuel at extreme temperatures blasts through. Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice during liftoff on Nov. 14, 1969, because of its heat production. Essentially, the rocket's exhaust system acted as a lightning rod and sparked lightning with already-lifting air from a nearby cold front. Temperatures and humidity both play critical roles in NASA rocket launches, as everything from the structural integrity and rocket performance can be impacted by weather conditions. Fuel, insulation, wiring, and other components can expand, contract, or break down if weather conditions aren't ideal. Many will remember the Challenger's last trip on Jan. 28, 1986, when air temperatures were 36 degrees, approximately 15 degrees colder than any other shuttle launch, causing the O-ring seal to become brittle and ultimately fail, leading to a catastrophic explosion. All Weather continues to play a critical role in NASA's strict 'launch commit criteria,' and if anything is near or outside the safe range, the launch is delayed or scrubbed for another day. Here's a look at an example weather checklist when considering safe conditions to launch. An example of the weather checklist utilized to proceed or delay a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral. NASA Ken Mahan can be reached at
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Partner of the First U.S. Woman in Space Reflects On Their Hidden Relationship
NASA Astronaut Sally Ride posing with her space helmet during her time in training as a mission specialist for NASA's STS-7 spaceflight. Credit - NASA History does not record if Sally Ride rolled her eyes when she got a look at the plans for the first toiletry kit NASA put together for its female astronauts—but she'd have been within her rights to do so. The space agency certainly knew how to pack for men, providing them more or less the basics—deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, razor. The women would get the essentials too, but there would be more: lipstick, blush, eyeliner, and, critically, up to 100 tampons—because who-all knew just how many the average woman would need during the average week in space? That first toiletry kit was planned before June 18, 1983, when Ride went aloft on the shuttle Challenger, becoming the first American woman in space, breaking the gender barrier the Soviets had broken with cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, just over 20 years to the day earlier. The tampon nonsense was not the only indignity NASA's female astronauts in general and Ride in particular had to endure. Her story is chronicled in the evocative new documentary Sally, a 2025 winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Alfred P. Sloan feature film prize. Among the memorable moments Ride experienced was the pre-flight press conference during which a TIME magazine correspondent raised his hand and asked, 'Dr. Ride, a couple of fast questions, sir…ma'am.' There was, too, the reporter who pointedly asked Ride 'Do you weep?' when confronted with a particularly knotty problem during training. There was the bouquet of flowers Ride was handed after the shuttle landed, intended as a gift to America's first space heroine—a gift Ride politely refused to accept, sparking all manner of criticism in the mainstream press. More important than all of that, though, was the private—exceedingly private—side to Ride, most notably her 27-year relationship with her life partner Tam O'Shaughnessy, a marriage-in-all-but-name that wasn't revealed until Ride died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at age 61, and O'Shaughnessy told the world in the obituary she wrote to mark her mate's passing. Not long before Ride died, O'Shaughnessy gently broached how—and whether—she should reveal their more-than quarter century secret. 'I asked Sally about that. I said, you know, 'I'm kind of worried. I don't know what I'm going to write, you know, how I'm going to navigate this,'' O'Shaughnessy recalled in a recent conversation with TIME, ahead of the release of the film. 'And she said, 'You decide. Whatever you decide will be the right thing to do.'' The film, written, produced, and directed by Cristina Costantini, premiers on the National Geographic channel on June 16, and becomes available for streaming on Disney+ and Hulu on June 17. As it reveals, Sally and Tam made a lot of right—and tough—choices in the time they had together, and Ride did much the same when it came to the professional trajectory that took her to space. There is no minimizing just how alien the notion of female astronauts was at the start, at least in the U.S. The film includes a clip of Gordon Cooper, one of NASA's original seven astronauts, being interviewed in the early 1960s. 'Is there any room in the space program for a woman?' the reporter asked. 'Well,' Cooper answered without a trace of a smile, 'we could have used a woman and flown her instead of the chimpanzee.' It wasn't until 1976, a decade and a half after Alan Shepard became the first American in space, that NASA opened up its astronaut selection process to women and people of color. More than 8,000 hopefuls applied; in 1978, NASA selected 35 of them to become astronauts, including three Black people, one Asian American, and six women. Ride was among them, as was Judith Resnik, who would lose her life when the shuttle Challenger exploded at the start of its tenth mission in January 1986. There was a great deal of handicapping inside and outside of NASA as to which woman would fly first—much the way there was among the men in the run-up to Shepard's flight in 1961—and Ride and Resnik were considered the leading candidates. Ultimately, as Sally recounts, Ride was chosen because she struck NASA mission planners as slightly less distracted by the celebrity attending being number one, focusing more on the mission and less on the history she would make. 'She loved physics and she loved space exploration,' says O'Shaughnessy, 'and with those things she could be intense, driven.' Ride loved O'Shaughnessy too—though it was a devotion that was a long time in the making. The two met when Ride was 13 and O'Shaughnessy was 12 and they were standing in line to check in to play in a tennis tournament in Southern California, where they both grew up. Ride repeatedly rose restlessly to her tiptoes, and O'Shaughnessy said, ''You're walking on your toes like a ballet dancer,'' she recalls in the film. 'That kind of started our friendship. Sally was kind of quiet, but she would talk for eight minutes straight on different players and how to beat 'em, how to whup 'em.' The two grew quickly close, but went in different directions, with Ride studying physics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania for three semesters beginning in 1968 and later at UCLA for the summer semester before transferring to Stanford as a junior, and O'Shaughnessy becoming a professional tennis player from 1971 to 1974, ultimately playing in both the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. O'Shaughnessy accepted her sexuality early, openly, and enthusiastically. 'I was on the tennis circuit and there were a few queer women,' she told TIME. 'But it was also just the atmosphere, even the straight women. No one really cared who you slept with…I was going to the gay bars in San Francisco and dancing with my friends.' For Ride, things were different. When she was at Stanford she fell in love with her female roommate and the two were together for four years. But Ride insisted on keeping the relationship largely under wraps and that secrecy was a no-go for her partner. 'She couldn't stand being so closeted and decided to move on with her life,' says O'Shaughnessy. Ride would later choose an opposite sex partner, marrying fellow astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, a move that was more than just an accommodating pose for a public figure in a country not ready for same-sex marriage, but less than a true union of the heart. 'They were really good friends,' O'Shaughnessy says. 'They had a lot in common. He was an astronomer, Sally was a physicist. They had stuff to talk about. They were both so thrilled to be selected to be astronauts and they both liked sports, so I think they had a solid friendship.' It wasn't enough. The two divorced in 1987, but even before they did, Ride and O'Shaughnessy began drifting together as more than just friends. At the time, O'Shaughnessy was living in Atlanta, after retiring from the tennis circuit; Ride, who was living in Houston, would visit her frequently. 'I never thought we would become romantic,' O'Shaughnessy says, 'but it just turned that way one afternoon in the spring of 1985. When she would come to town, we would typically go for runs and long walks and just spend time together. Back at my place one day, we were just talking. I had an old cocker spaniel named Annie, I leaned over to pet her, and the next thing I knew, Sally's hand was on my lower back. And it felt unusual. I turned to look at her and I could tell she was in love with me.' As O'Shaughnessy recalls in the film, she said, 'Oh boy, we're in trouble.' Ride responded, 'We don't have to be. We don't have to do this.' Then they kissed. Ride would ultimately fly twice in space, going aloft the second time in 1984, once again aboard the shuttle Challenger. After that snake-bit ship came to tragic ruin, exploding 73 seconds into its last flight and claiming the lives of all seven crewmembers, Ride and Neil Armstrong, the commander of Apollo 11 and the first man on the moon, served on the commission that investigated the causes of the accident. Ride left NASA in 1987, accepting a fellowship at Stanford and later became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. In 1989, O'Shaughnessy moved out west to live with her. It would not be until 2013, a year after Ride's death, that California would permanently legalize gay marriage, and it would not be until 2015 that the Supreme Court would do the same nationwide. That was alright with Ride, who, as with her relationship with her college roommate, continued to believe that her love for O'Shaughnessy should remain a quiet and relatively private thing. But all that began to change in 2011. It was early that year that Ride first showed signs of illness—poor appetite and yellowing cheeks. Her doctor diagnosed pancreatic cancer. 'The doctor never said what stage. He never said the worst stage. We thought she was going to get better, and we were trying everything,' O'Shaughnessy recalls. 'She was doing acupuncture, we were meditating, we became vegans. And then one day, we're at the oncologist, and he said, 'It's time for hospice.' And Sally and I were, like, shocked.' Not long before Ride died, the couple grew concerned that O'Shaughnessy would not be allowed to visit her in the hospital, help make critical care decisions, or share property because they were not married—and could not be in California. So they went for the next best thing, registering as certified domestic partners, which afforded them the necessary rights. 'It's the worst phrase,' says O'Shaughnessy. 'We used to call each other certified domestic hens, because it's such a bad term.' Whatever name they went by, they would not get to enjoy their newly legalized status for long. Ride passed on July 23, 2012, just 17 months after she was diagnosed. At first NASA planned no formal memorial or celebration of Ride's life. Then, the next month, Armstrong died and a memorial was held at the Washington National Cathedral, with 1,500 people in attendance. 'I got mad,' O'Shaughnessy says. She called then-Senator Barbara Mikulski (D, Md.) who chaired the Senate Committee on Appropriations and oversaw NASA's budget. Mikulski called then-NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, who at first offered up a relatively intimate affair for 300 people at the National Air and Space Museum. O'Shaughnessy pressed, and ultimately won approval for a far more prepossessing event at the Kennedy Center in 2013. Today, Ride's legacy lives on in Sally Ride Science, a nonprofit founded by Ride and O'Shaughnessy in 2001 to inspire girls to become scientifically literate and to draw girls and women into the STEM fields. It lives on too in astronaut Peggy Whitson, who now holds the U.S. record for most time spent in space, at 675 days over four missions. It lives on in Christina Koch, who will become the first woman to travel to the moon, when she flies aboard Artemis II on its circumlunar journey in 2026. It lives on in NASA's current 46-person astronaut corps, of whom 19 are women. Ride flew high, Ride flew fast, and Ride flew first—doing service to both science and human equity in the process. Sally powerfully tells her tale. Write to Jeffrey Kluger at
National Geographic
30-05-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
How Sally Ride blazed a trail for women in space
In June 1983, this barrier-breaking astronaut overcame discriminatory policies—and a sexist society—as the first American woman to launch into orbit. Sally Ride sits in the aft flight deck mission specialist's seat during deorbit preparations. On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space when the space shuttle Challenger launched on mission STS-7. As one of the three mission specialists on the mission, Ride played a vital role in helping the crew deploy communications satellites, conduct experiments, and make use of the first Shuttle Pallet Satellite. On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride would become the first American woman to launch into space. She had already survived NASA's grueling training and a barrage of tests, but there was another hurdle to cross before she boarded the Challenger space shuttle—overcoming the scrutiny of the media and the public. In the lead-up to the launch, the astronaut fielded questions about menstruation, fashion, and even whether she might cry in space. Despite long-standing biases about women's ability to withstand the rigors of space flight, here's how Sally Ride broke barriers—and changed the face of the space program along the way. Dive into Ride's journey with the award-winning film Sally, airing on National Geographic June 16 and streaming June 17 on Disney+. Sally Ride's early life and career Born in Los Angeles in 1951, Ride successfully turned a childhood interest in science, spurred in part by a chemistry set, into a storied STEM career. Though she almost pursued a career in tennis—she was a nationally-ranked player as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College and then Stanford University—the young Ride instead opted for a career in astrophysics. Ride was completing her doctorate at Stanford when she saw the newspaper ad that would change her life—and the history of space flight. NASA was recruiting for its 1978 class, and for the first time, women were invited to apply. Though women had already been to space—Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova had paved the way in 1963—NASA had long resisted the idea of women astronauts. In the early 1960s, 13 women participated in a privately funded program designed to test whether women could succeed in space. But though the group passed the same set of tests as NASA astronauts, the Woman in Space Program was ditched in 1962. (Here's why women may be best suited for spaceflight.) That year, during Congressional hearings on the feasibility of sending women to space, astronauts John Glenn and Scott Carpenter testified against the program, claiming women were not qualified because they were not military test pilots—a longstanding requirement for NASA astronauts—even though that profession, too, was closed to women. But by the time Ride applied to the agency in 1978, NASA had dropped that requirement. As Ride read the ad's list of applicant qualifications, she realized that, in her words, 'I'm one of those people.' Indeed, she was one of six women selected for the class of 35 out of an applicant pool of 8,000. The Challenger shuttle lifts off from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 18, 1983. With this historic launch, Sally Ride became America's first female astronaut to go into space. This was Challenger's second mission and the seventh space shuttle launch. Photograph by Robert Alexander, Archive Photos/Getty Sally Ride and her fellow women astronauts kept their heads down and tried their best not to garner special attention. Five years later, after mastering various behind-the-scenes roles at mission control and helping develop the International Space Station's robotic arm, Ride was chosen as a crew member for mission STS-7, a June 1983 flight on the Challenger shuttle. (Read how Ride helped inspire this astronaut hopeful.) The media and NASA itself struggled to figure out what to make of the personable, straightforward scientist. As it prepared for the flight, NASA suggested she take 100 tampons for a week-long mission and even created a makeup kit for her to take to space. (She didn't.) Meanwhile, the media barraged her with frivolous questions. 'Everybody wanted to know what kind of makeup I was taking up—they didn't care about how well-prepared I was to operate the arm or deploy communication satellites,' Ride had told feminist leader and political activist Gloria Steinem in a 1983 interview. Despite the pressure, Ride's first flight—a six-day satellite deployment and retrieval mission—was a success, landing at Edwards Air Force Base on June 24, 1983. So was her second mission, an eight-day flight in 1984. And though Ride's third flight was canceled after the Challenger was lost, she continued to work for NASA. She retired from NASA in 1989, becoming a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the University of California Space Institute. She later created her own company, Sally Ride Science, designed to encourage girls and women to pursue STEM careers. Sally Ride stands near the monodisperse latex reactor experiment and displays the array of tools at her disposal on the mid deck of the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Challenger. Ride and four other astronauts aboard shared duties aboard the reusable spacecraft. Astronaut Sally Ride communicates with ground controllers from the mid deck of the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Challenger. Ride monitored the continuous flow electrophoresis system experiment during the mission. Ride broke barriers in life and in death. On July 23, 2012, she died of pancreatic cancer at just 61—and the obituary that she had prepared prior to her death included a line about her 27-year-long relationship with a woman, her business partner Tam O'Shaughnessy. Coming out during her life 'doesn't seem to have occurred to her and certainly would have jeopardized her chance to go to space if not killed it outright,' wrote Ann Friedman for The American Prospect, noting that as late as 1990, seven years after Ride first went to space, NASA had made moves to disqualify people from the space program based on their sexual orientation. Though that rule was never passed and the agency now has an office dedicated to its LGBTQ employees, there has never been an openly LGBTQ astronaut. In 2013, Ride was posthumously awarded Ride the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. There have been other American women in space, however—more than 40 of them—and in 2019, American astronauts completed a historic all-woman spacewalk. 'Now people don't notice there are women going up on space shuttle flights,' Ride said in 2002. 'It's happening all the time.' Today, the very normalcy of women's participation in the space program is a testament to Ride's pioneering career—and, by 2024, NASA may even land the first woman on the moon as part of its upcoming Artemis mission. Sally begins airing on National Geographic June 16 and streams on Disney+ June 17. Check local listings. Sally Ride's iconic flight jacket. Ride wore this uniform on her historic first ride into space on June 18, 1983, with the STS-7 space shuttle mission. Photograph by Mackenzie Calle, Nat Geo Image Collection In 2019, Sally Ride's image was immortalized in a Barbie doll. Ride serves as a role model for generations of young women. Photograph by Mackenzie Calle, Nat Geo Image Collection
