Mission Specialist
Dr. Sally Ride now completing
her preparations for
ingress into the Orbiter.
The countdown at T-minus
one hour, 40 minutes,
25 seconds, and counting.
All five of our flight
crew are on board now.
Dr. Sally Ride will
be known as MS2.
Okay, team,
this is MS2.
Are you ready?
MS2, I
read you loud and clear.
Some U.S. space history is
to be made for the first time,
an American woman.
- America's first woman.
- The first American woman.
The first American woman.
America's first female
astronaut will be
launched into space.
Her name is Sally Ride.
- Sally Ride.
- Sally Ride.
- Sally Ride.
- Astronaut Sally Ride.
- Sally, you're a star.
- We're all behind you.
Ride on, Sally.
Dr. Ride, have you felt
that the press coverage has
been heavy-handed?
Press coverage?
I think that it's too bad that
our society isn't further along
and that this is
such a big deal.
Sally
was the most famous person
on Earth for a while,
and for good reason.
T-minus two
minutes and counting.
I've come
to realize that I will be
a role model.
The hydrogen
igniters have been armed.
Women get a chance
to prove themselves,
hope she doesn't mess
it up for us all.
I feel pretty
strongly that it's important
that I don't do anything dumb.
25.
T-minus 25
seconds and counting.
The sequencer on board now
controlling the final seconds.
I think it's time that
people realize that women
in this country can do any
job that they wanna do.
Sally risked everything
to make history.
But telling the world about us,
that was a risk
she couldn't take.
T-minus ten,
nine, eight, seven, six.
We have the main engine start,
we have main engine start.
And lift off!
Lift off on STS-7 and America's
first woman astronaut.
Hey, do you all know
who this person is here?
- Yes.
- You do?
What's her name?
- Sally Ride.
- Yeah, right.
- Right. What's she do?
- She's an astronaut.
- An astronaut?
- That's right.
How do you eat?
Doesn't it float
it up in the air?
You wouldn't wanna have
peas or anything like that,
because if you opened up
a can of peas, they'd all.
But how, how many here
would like to go up in space
with Sally on the next ride?
Okay. We got a deal.
It's okay if we all go, right?
- Sure, no problem.
- Okay.
Sally liked
how people thought about her.
She was the golden girl
and such a good role model.
You look like you're
having some trouble.
Is there something
I can do to help?
Huh.
Well, this rocket
here won't blast off.
She
didn't want that to change.
We didn't plan to hide anything.
I used to want to be an
astronaut when I grew up.
- Did you really?
- Yes I did.
There's still time.
It hurt me,
but I'm not sure it hurt Sally.
She didn't care
about such things.
This is Tam
interview, take one.
Action.
Action.
Um, could you start by
introducing yourself,
tell me who you are, and
maybe who you were to Sally?
Sure.
My name is Tam O'Shaughnessy,
and, uh,
and I was her life
partner for 27 years.
The first time I met Sally,
she was 13, I was 12.
And we were standing in line
with a bunch of other girls for
a tennis tournament.
It was boiling hot there.
I mean, I just have a picture
of completely blue skies.
I was behind Sally in line.
I noticed her because she
was standing on her toes.
And then when the
line moved forward,
she was walking on her toes
and I'd never seen somebody
do that before.
You know, I was just staring
at her, kind of cracking up.
And Sally just happened to
turn her head and notice me.
I said something like,
"You're walking on your
toes like a ballet dancer."
That kind of started
our friendship.
Sally was kind of quiet, but
she would talk eight minutes
straight on different
players and how to beat them,
how to whoop them.
Her style of play was
crafty, uh, drop shots,
and ball placement.
I got to play doubles
with her and she wanted
to be on the side
where the pressure was.
Some people are like
that in the world.
If the game is on the line,
they wanna be the
one that takes the shot.
And Sally was like that.
I grew up during
the heyday of the space program.
It was on the front page of the
newspaper every day and I still
remember our elementary school
teachers wheeling those big old
black and white TV sets into
the classroom so that we could
watch the very early launches.
I think all the kids
dreamed of being astronauts
at one point or another.
That's one
small step for man.
Boy.
Hey, I'm gonna
be busy for a minute.
I loved science,
but like many girls going
through middle school,
I started losing my self-esteem,
I started losing my confidence.
I started to internalize
the subtle messages
that people often convey.
Because the space
program was all male,
it frankly didn't
occur to me that I could
be an astronaut.
In 1976, NASA decided
that they were going to
expand the Astronaut Corps
and they were going to
include women and
minorities for the first time.
I saw an ad in
the Stanford student newspaper
by NASA saying that
they were accepting
applications for astronauts.
The moment I saw that,
I knew that's
what I wanted to do.
That very day I quipped off a
little handwritten application.
"Now that
the space program has evolved"
to the point where women
are being considered,
I feel that I'm being offered
an incredible opportunity.
Further, I think
that my background,
the scientific training in
general and astrophysics,
qualifies me to contribute as
much to the program as I expect
"to get out of it."
So if she made a mistake,
she would just cross
through it and keep going.
Sounds like her personality.
When NASA announced
it was recruiting between
30 and 40 new astronauts,
more than 8,000 hopeful
candidates responded,
including over 1,500 women.
I knew that I
had a reasonable chance to
go a reasonable distance in
the selection process.
I was gonna have a Ph.D.
by the time the selection
process was over.
And, you know, I had a
good athletic background.
Sally Ride's vital
statistics include a string of
academic credentials that
at first glance seemed
to belong to three people.
At Stanford University,
she simultaneously earned
degrees in English and Physics,
then a Master's and
Ph.D. in Astrophysics.
Sally was kinda a little bit
c*ck about physics.
She loved that it was
very challenging to learn.
Therefore, if you learned it,
you were kinda hot stuff.
One night when
we were in our 20s,
I invited Sally for dinner.
And we hadn't seen
each other in a few years.
I just decided that I wanted
to do something special.
I didn't make very much money,
but I bought steaks, some wine,
and we had lower light.
It was exciting and fun
getting to know each other
again as adults.
She knew I was g*y, I told her.
And I told her that I
was dating this woman.
But I didn't know she
had her own experience.
I had no clue.
Sally was my
first best friend as well as my
first relationship with a woman.
I never talked about my
college years, you know,
because my college years
were so wrapped up in Sally.
What I had with
Sally was wonderful.
And for four years, we
were together all the time.
But neither of us were
talking to anybody outside of
our own little household
about what was going on.
We certainly weren't holding
hands outside the apartment.
I think that was what finally
ended it for me is that,
that I couldn't live in
that tiny little world.
I remember
seeing Molly and Sally together,
but I didn't know.
I didn't know that
until years later.
And when we had the
romantic steak dinner that I
didn't realize was romantic,
we just talked and connected
and it was a lovely evening.
She did tell me 10 years
later that her feelings for me
started to change that night.
But I didn't, you know,
I had no clue.
Shortly thereafter, she got
the phone call from NASA.
I got a phone
call very early in the morning
California time.
I thought maybe I was dreaming.
I had been accepted for
the astronaut office.
Of course, I was thrilled.
In early 1978,
astrophysicist, Dr. Sally Ride,
notified her family of an
important event in her career.
She'd been selected by NASA
to be an astronaut candidate.
I was very excited.
The first thing I did was I
hung up the phone from talking
to George Abbey and I
picked it up again and called
my mother and then called
my sister, called my father.
They're almost as
excited as I am.
My mother's reaction
was that my,
I have another sister
who's in theology.
She's at a theological seminary.
And my mother said,
"Well, you know,
one of the two of them is
going to get to heaven."
Up to now, the men
on the moon have been
just that, men, not women.
In fact, up to now, all
astronauts have been men,
and White, not Black.
The United States Space Agency
has appointed 35 new astronauts,
including six women,
three Blacks, and one Oriental.
It was all science fiction
till they landed on the moon.
Now all my space comic books
are in the history room.
When I got to NASA,
it was the coolest thing.
And from that point on, I
really dreamed of getting a
chance to go into space myself.
Can you hear us singing
from the galaxy next door?
We walked in as
rookies in the Astronaut Corps.
None of us knew anything about
what was about to happen to us.
That was really the
turning point in my life.
I'd like to welcome all of
our new friends to Houston,
and the Johnson Space Center.
We found over 8,000 people
who were interested in being
astronauts and who applied.
The very first trip down
to Houston was all 35 of us,
just to introduce us,
in a big, formal press splash.
There were 10 people
the likes of whom had never
been in NASA's
Astronaut Corps before.
Sally Ride.
She's presently a
research assistant in the
Physics Department
at Stanford University,
Stanford, California.
There was
a huge spotlight turned on
the 10 of us that
were different.
And so we were in just a press
gauntlet for hours and hours.
Kathy Sullivan.
It kind of
attuned us to what was coming.
You're now a public figure.
They're not gonna just wanna
know about your hopes for the
space program or
what you wanna do.
They'd wanna get at the
stereotypical angles,
the romantic angles,
the hair and makeup angles,
the fashion angles,
the angles they're
used to applying to women
that they're covering.
What happens when
you meet a man who's not in the
space program and doesn't
know who you are and you say,
"I'm an astronaut"?
Does he say, "Hey, you're
too cute to be an astronaut?
Come on, little lady.
You can't be an astronaut"?
I just tell him
I'm an engineer.
When do you
expect to go up in the shuttle?
Oh, it's
gonna be a few years for us
who are relatively new,
but it's worth the wait.
The Space Shuttle
Columbia is scheduled
to take off from
Cape Canaveral, Florida
on its initial test flight.
I can't
wait to get up.
I think that we're all eager
to each get up ourselves.
Everybody wanted to be
first male and female.
And that's just the
nature of who we were.
The astronauts knew that
certain people were important.
But the actual process,
what criteria they used,
it was an absolute
black box mystery.
They didn't know, you know,
should I be more friendly?
Should I work an
extra two hours?
They didn't know
what the formula was.
There was no question that
Sally wanted to be the first.
She never would have
admitted that in an interview.
Every interview you
read with her, she'll say,
"Oh, well, I just wanna fly."
I didn't come
into this program to be the
first woman in space.
I don't have any great
desire to be the first woman.
That doesn't mean
all that much to me,
but getting up as
soon as I can does.
Some of
the training is really hard.
Parachute jumping,
the Vomit Comet,
the airplane that
dips and dives.
It gives them 20 seconds
of weightlessness.
It was a Vomit Comet.
Yeah, it, it was well-named.
The women astronauts
had been subjected to the same
exercises as their
male counterparts.
They've been hoisted,
dunked, and pulled,
taught survival techniques,
learning to use some of the
tools they'll be
taking with them on the
real shuttle flights.
All the while, there
were all these media folks
all around you.
They're
watching very closely how
you're doing.
"Can these people
really hack it,
in the unknowns and
the uncertainties,
the potential hazards?"
Do you think
that you are as good as
any male astronaut here?
Yeah.
And better
than some of them?
I'm, I'm not
stupid enough to say that.
It got narrowed down in
almost everyone's minds between
Sally or Judy Resnik.
Judy was always considered
a strong contender.
She's really smart,
really good engineer.
Sally and Judy were
like apples and oranges.
They're two entirely different
types of personalities.
Judy was a sweetheart
and she was extraordinarily
bright and capable but she
loved having fun.
Sally was much quieter.
Her personality was
strictly business.
I never really saw her
display a lot of emotion.
Is she mad?
Is she happy?
Is she upset?
I don't know.
That made her a little bit hard
for people to get close to.
She did
have a rough edge to her.
I don't think she knew how
to be friends with someone
she was competing with.
One of my
first assignments was on the
shuttle's robot arm.
It was still in the testing
and development stage.
By virtue
of your assignments,
that would put you in a
position where you would be
eligible to be first.
The point of
the robot arm was to be able to
pluck satellites out of the
shuttle and put it into space.
Having that assignment
was a big deal.
Sally was
a very good arm operator,
as was Judy.
Yeah, it
drifted aft of the bay,
aft of the center.
I've got it at 45 and 30 now.
Because
of her hand-eye coordination
from being a tennis player,
Sally just took to it
and figured out how it could
work in space, and
so people noticed that she had
mastered the robotic arm.
Those kind of factors
might put you in a fast track
to an early flight.
Sally had a very
different competitive mindset
than the rest of us.
One day, we're training
and I'm practicing on the
big robotic arm.
I'm up at that panel to start
working with it and I notice
Sally pass behind me
and go down the ladder
to the deck below.
And, suddenly, the arm
stops moving... abruptly.
And so I go into
troubleshooting mode and
eventually work my way back to
the circuit breakers which are
on a panel that you go by
that panel as you go down that
ladder and they've
all been pulled out.
So it became clear
to me that Sally,
on her way down the ladder,
had just quietly
popped, popped, popped
the circuit breakers out.
Was Sally just helpfully
playing instructor and seeing
if I could figure it out?
Was she sending
some kind of signal,
like "That's my manipulator arm.
What are you doing with it?"
Or just messing with my head?
If any of the six
of us was consciously
aiming at "I want that prize,"
I would bet it
probably was Sally.
I couldn't
understand the excitement of
working for NASA, quite frankly.
I thought it would be
like the most boring,
constrained place on
the Earth to work,
and just not open-minded
to people of color.
You know, if you're q*eer,
you know, get out of here.
I took a much different path.
Instead of going to college,
I joined the first-ever women's
professional tennis tour,
the Virginia Slim Circuit.
I did play the US Open
and Wimbledon.
And I met a lot of
wonderful people,
including a female tennis
player from Sweden.
We had become friends and
then I realized the way I was
thinking about her was
sort of, uh, different.
It was kind of g*y.
And it, it shocked me.
And I was afraid.
Growing up, I got the message
about h*m* or lesbians,
you know, are very scary people.
Most Americans are
repelled by the mere
notion of h*m*.
The CBS News survey shows
that two out of three Americans
look upon h*m* with
disgust, discomfort, or fear.
I think it's revolting.
And it says in
the Old Testament,
it's an abomination against God.
It's not American, you know?
I think they should
be shot if you ask me.
At first,
all the fear and shame that we
grew up with rose up in me.
You have to be careful.
You have to cover who you are.
You have to hide how you feel.
And all of that stuff started.
But I came from this tennis
environment where they just did
not care who you were dating
or who you were sleeping with.
I connected with a growing
community of women who were
willing to be more open
about their sexuality.
There was a whole movement
happening across the country.
If they thought that we
were everywhere in the 1970s,
wait till they see the 1980s.
Seeing
other members of the q*eer
community out marching and
being themselves was inspiring.
I decided I was gonna tell
my sisters and my mom.
I saw that it was possible to
be honest about who I was and
it felt really good.
I feel lucky to have
experienced that when I was,
you know, 19, 20, 21, you know?
Sally had a completely,
much more
constrained environment.
When Sally and I started
dating, she brought this to me.
And it, I have to say, it
surprised me because it's,
it's two women.
It's beautiful, but it just
surprised me a little bit
'cause I knew she was private
and she wasn't out and,
and proud and all
that sort of stuff.
Sally just did not
talk about how she felt
about personal things.
Even as a youngster,
she was very private, even then.
Her whole family, they
did not have that intimate,
inside-the-guts kind
of relationship.
What was
Sally like as a kid?
What do
you attribute that to?
And what's your
relationship to Sally?
Sally's parents were
progressive thinkers,
very open-minded, and
both of them just believed that
their daughters could do
anything they wanted to do.
Sally's childhood
was, in a way, ideal,
but on the other hand, her
parents didn't show much
affection to each other
or to Bear and Sally.
Being Norwegian, we
were not a family that
shared feelings a lot.
Sally
absorbed the message that too
much exuberance, too much
emotion is not what we do
around here, you know?
She didn't
learn how to express her
emotions because they were
not expressed at home.
Sally and I would, for example,
like drive up to visit her mom,
knock on the door.
Joyce would answer and,
"Hello, oldest daughter,"
you know, and,
"Hello, Tam."
And then kinda go back
to what she was doing.
So there was no like,
"Come on in."
Hug.
You know, hug Sally.
"Oh, I haven't seen
you, love you."
None of that.
Absolutely none.
She, she went back to the
dining room table to do
whatever she was doing.
Do you see yourself,
at this point, as a
"right stuff" kind of astronaut?
You wanna define that?
Well, I think what
Tom Wolfe does is something
like death-defying,
fighter jock, et cetera.
No, I don't think so.
Out of roughly 4,000
technical employees at
the Johnson Space Center,
there were only four women.
So that gives you a sense
of how male the culture was.
The
hierarchy of big meetings,
the main table had always
only ever been men.
I can recall some kind
of perplexed looks.
"What's that girl doing,
whose secretary is sitting
at the table?"
Is there any
difference being a female
astronaut as opposed to
being a male astronaut?
Is there anything positive,
anything negative,
anything funny?
No.
I don't think, I don't think
you ought to even address that
question in your program.
Do I.
I would like you to
cut that out, okay?
Fine. That's it.
All of us tried to
downplay our femininity.
Sally and I went
shopping together.
We were looking for
brown khaki pants and shirts
that looked like
what the guys wear.
We wanted them to think
of us as one of the team and
not as a female astronaut.
This
is a jacket that I think
Sally enjoyed wearing, you know,
with her aviator sunglasses.
She was channeling, you know,
the Apollo
astronauts and all their,
kind of their macho,
c*ck, c*ck ways.
The
women astronauts had a
fine line to walk.
On the one hand,
they wanted to blend in.
But they also had
to find a way to confront
the baked-in sexism of
the culture of the time.
No, either, what
I, what I was saying was
it's not Ms. Ride.
It's either Doctor
or it's Sally.
And you can take your choice.
Okay.
Take your choice.
It's probably easier...
I
think Sally for her.
We can use it
one time, one way,
one time, the next way?
Okay.
That's right.
Huh?
Just don't get.
'Cause we kinda...
Well, that one's not right.
Okay.
There are
elements of NASA that really
don't know what to do with us.
Some of them are a
little bit patronizing.
Every time they'll come
to talk to one of us,
they're not quite sure
what to make of us.
I was a graduate at West Point.
Went to Vietnam.
134 combat missions over there.
I felt that the women who
were selected hadn't paid
their dues like we had.
Quite a few of the military
people shared my attitude.
You know, I thought Sally
was very attractive.
Judy was beautiful.
That was the
reality at the time.
You know, men saw
women then for,
for the sexual
creatures they were.
But women astronauts?
Are you kidding me?
There, there.
Astronauts don't cry.
They'll
panic at the first problem.
They'll be screaming.
They'll be clutching.
They'll be looking for
a man to hide behind.
We must investigate,
under controlled conditions,
the reactions of a woman
to moon space environment.
Well, Renzo,
welcome to your new home.
That unit is defective.
Its thinking is chaotic.
That unit is a woman.
I remember telling
a joke and it had some
obscene language in it.
And you can obviously edit
this out but the punch line
involved the word "t*ts."
And I could just see
in her eyes, you know,
this look of "You're
the most disgusting person
I've ever met."
And I didn't talk to
her much after that.
I had never worked
professionally with women.
I was very suspect of,
of them being able to perform
in such a dangerous world
of high-performance flight.
I just couldn't see what
they were gonna be bringing
to the table.
The reason that women
weren't able to go into space
in the early 1960s
was really because they
had never thought
about the astronaut being
anything other than a man.
Is there any
room in our space program for
a woman astronaut?
Well, we could
have used a woman,
and flown her instead
of the chimpanzee.
Now, I...
In the late '50s,
a group of women pilots who
went through all of the same
tests that had been put
together for the male candidates
for the Mercury program.
If we're going to send
a human being into space,
we should send the
one most qualified.
Women weigh less,
require less weight,
food, and oxygen,
so you could go up
in the same booster.
Go up higher or stay
up a lot longer.
The women did very well.
They did much better on
the cardiopulmonary tests and
the sensory deprivation testing.
But if you could find women
better qualified than yourself,
how would you welcome
them in the program?
Oh.
They would be very welcome.
Very few people spoke against
the women explicitly,
but, eventually,
the program was canceled.
The Soviets,
they got there first.
They had the first
satellite with Sputnik.
They had the first
human in space.
They had the
first female in space,
Valentina Tereshkova.
But America wasn't ready
for a woman for a long time.
Sally, is there
anybody here at NASA who is
still unconvinced
that women have a place
in the space program?
I think there are a
few people that are,
that are waiting
to see how I do.
Let me, let me put it that way.
After only
one year of training,
Sally was chosen to
be Capcom on STS-2.
That's like a plum position,
the only person in
Mission Control to talk
to the astronauts in space.
Okay.
You're loud and clear now.
And we copied your RMS
comments and it sounds great.
Okay.
It's a lot
of responsibility.
And on that particular mission,
they had, had some problems.
During the mission,
heat tiles were damaged.
The heat tiles are the
only thing that protects
the shuttle when it comes
back into Earth's atmosphere.
Without enough heat
tiles, it blows up.
But you don't want me to even
mention that there are
changes coming until we
get over the States.
That's right.
We'd like to take
a look a little while longer at
the camera problem.
Okay.
You understand we've
lost the, the camera.
The same failure.
The circuit breaker is out.
There
was increasing frustration
in the control room.
Lives were on the line.
Well, uh, fiddlesticks.
We need to decide what
we're gonna do here.
Capcom, tell them to,
to go ahead and
abort the grapple test.
- Okay.
- Then we'll talk about
camera circuit breakers
and reset some stuff later.
We got data
down here to look at then
so let us think about that.
She
wanted to prove she could
handle the pressure.
Columbia, Houston,
while we're looking
into the camera problem,
if you could give us
spec one to a GNC machine,
we'll start that.
She performed
so well as Capcom.
She was articulate.
She was good under pressure.
Smart, worked hard.
Hi, Mom.
And funny.
You were the
first female Capcom.
Were you scared?
Did you love it?
What, what, what were
you thinking then?
That was fun.
That is, that is,
next to flying,
probably the best job
in the astronaut office,
'cause I thought that it was,
it was really an honor to be
the one that gets
to talk to the crew.
Um, and I was scared to death.
So this, I can't remember
what year this was,
but this is Billie Jean King,
the fabulous tennis player,
and Sally.
I knew
Sally in the early days.
She loved sports.
She loved tennis.
She was a camp counselor
at Tennis America.
Tennis America was a really cool
tennis camp that
Billie Jean King started.
Sally was the best tennis
player of all the tennis kids
and counselors at the camp,
and they became
lifelong friends.
It has been
a spectacular career.
Billie Jean King has
done for women's tennis what
Muhammad Ali did for boxing.
She has won 20
Wimbledon titles and
13 United States Open titles.
I have a lot of
respect for her as a person.
I think that she's done
a lot for women and is the
kind of person that can speak
out articulately on things.
I admire her a lot.
Sally
grew up watching Billie Jean,
hearing about her advocacy
for girls and women.
Through Billie Jean,
Sally learned what a
champion looks like.
And then, Billie Jean's
life turned upside down.
Billie Jean King has
been served with a h*m*
palimony suit by a woman
claiming she and the tennis
star were lovers
for several years.
Last week Billie Jean King
told us of her l*sbian affair.
The snickers could
be heard worldwide.
The media had a
field day with the story.
The tennis star admitted
at a news conference that
she'd had an affair some
years back with her secretary.
When I got outed, I lost
every endorsement overnight.
So that's it.
So I had to start over.
I had to pay a lot of
money to the lawyers and
I have to start over,
financially, every way.
Tennis star, Billie Jean King,
has been dropped from her
vitamin advertising campaign.
My mom used to say,
"Billie Jean, don't
forget your vitamins."
It was downhill
for a lot of years.
Yeah.
Any g*y, you know,
person of any renown,
they'd have to
sit and think twice,
"You know, look what
happened to Billie Jean."
It must have sort of
served as a warning.
Sally was probably thinking,
"Well, I'm not going there.
Oh, my God, if that
happened to Billie,
what's gonna happen
if I say anything
in this program?"
Being in the closet,
everything you do was
measured and careful,
and you have to decide
what to say and what not to say.
It's exhausting.
So you can never reveal
much of yourself.
I've been waiting
patiently for my dream lover
To come to me.
Hoping you would say.
Astronaut Sally Ride
and Steve Hawley got married
last month in Salina, Kansas.
They kept the news
secret until this week.
Steve's father
and Sally's sister,
both ministers,
did the ceremony.
I didn't even know about
it until after it happened.
Steve sorta didn't realize they
were getting married either
till they finally got married.
We were kinda
surprised when Sally said that
they were gonna get married.
Somehow I had sort of never
pictured Sally getting married,
but there you had it.
It was an unusual
wedding, to say the least.
They both wore white,
white jeans.
Welcome baby
to my heart.
Take one, sound 21.
Uh, my name is Steve Hawley.
I'm from Salina, Kansas.
I'm Steve Hawley.
I was a member of the class
of 1978 shuttle astronaut,
Sally was too.
So we were classmates.
I would say our
relationship was always
sort of nontraditional.
Part of that was
our personalities,
part of it was the jobs we had.
When you
have two astronauts married
to each other,
is it different from say
two teachers or two lawyers?
Do you bring your
work home with you?
My guess is teachers would
talk about teaching at home.
We talk about flight rules and
flight performance reserves and
ISPs and solid rocket
motor performance and
things like that.
But it's 'cause we enjoy it.
She had a great sense of humor.
She was athletic.
I was a little concerned
that I might not be able to
keep up with Sally.
It
just didn't gel with me.
It didn't feel quite right.
It just didn't feel like Sally.
Certainly one of my
first thoughts was,
"Great PR move.
That's gonna make for all
the right publicity photos.
Handsome young astronaut couple.
Just fits a nice, neat package."
What is your idea
of a great evening at home?
- That one's easy.
- Yeah.
Lying in front of the
television set with basically,
with our brains
turned off, I think.
Yeah, it's, it's so
uncommon, I guess,
that we have a chance to,
to be together with nothing
to do that we very much
enjoy the times when we can
absolutely do nothing.
I can't say for sure that
I know what motivated her
to want to go ahead
and get married.
At the time I thought,
"Great, you know?"
That's what I wanted too."
It just felt like we were
getting married, both of us,
in good faith.
She may
have felt pressure, in case,
anybody thought she was g*y.
I don't know what mixture
her motives might have been.
It might have been...
NASA was barely ready for women.
They're not ready for this.
One time a
very close friend asked Sally
directly, "Were you in a sexual
relationship with Molly?"
She said, "Molly wanted it,
but I didn't."
She had this really
difficult line to walk.
It seems like a pretty
good strategy to find someone
within the club.
It would serve her well.
You know, it would
check another box.
Oh, God.
Okay.
So Sally would just send
these sweet funky notes to me.
So this one,
"Dear Tam, while I was fooling
around with trig identities,
I decided to
tackle the problem of red
plus green equals yellow.
"It works."
And so she actually did the
math to show how you get yellow.
Red plus green equals yellow.
"Isn't physics wonderful?
You sure are.
Love, the mad physicist."
It's, it's a classic
note from Sally.
It's just, it's fabulous.
One morning,
George Abbey called a meeting.
Ken, you wanna
get that back door?
And he stood there and
announced the crew for STS-7.
Four
names were announced.
There was a rather
silent reaction.
There were rumors that
Judy was the number one choice,
but George Abbey
thought that Judy liked the
spotlight too much and
Sally could care less.
So he convinced the
others that it should be Sally.
We'd been in
training for four years,
building up to this point.
And that's when George Abbey
told me that I was gonna
be the first American
woman to go into space.
I was numb and I really
don't have any recollection
of how I felt.
I know that they wouldn't
let us tell anybody else.
I just remember kind of
walking around in a fog with
John Fabian most of the day,
because he was in the same fog
that I was.
And that's about
all that I remember.
It was a feeling
of unbelievable joy.
Sally and I were among
the first people in our
class to fly.
She had earned that
position on the first flight.
The balance that she
had in her personality,
the seriousness with which she
assumed her responsibilities,
her knowledge of the systems.
Dr. Ride, what does
it mean to you personally,
this achievement of,
of going into space?
Oh, this is
something that I've been
looking forward to ever
since I came to NASA for the
last four years.
And it's a, it's a culmination
of the work that I've been
doing since I came to NASA.
And I'm, I'm just thrilled
to death to be able to do it.
Sun is shinin'
in the sky.
There ain't a
cloud in sight.
It'll be the
seventh shuttle mission,
but it will also be a first,
for aboard will be America's
first female astronaut,
a woman named Sally Ride.
The 30-year-old
astrophysicist will perform
experiments aboard the
shuttle Challenger,
the first American
woman in space.
Mr. Blue Sky is living
here today, hey.
I flew a lot with Sally.
Sally was a really,
really good pilot.
One time, I asked Sally
if she would go with me.
We flew out over
the Gulf of Mexico.
We went through all
of the acrobatics.
Things like turning yourself
upside down and then diving
towards the Earth and
pulling out the bottom,
it's called a
"Split S Maneuver,"
and doing a complete circle.
And Sally is back
there going, "Wee!"
It came natural.
No training required.
Mr. Blue Sky.
Mr. Blue Sky.
Mr. Blue Sky.
Mr. Blue, you did it right.
What does it
feel like to be flying?
Is it a freedom kind of thing?
It's a feeling
of being a little bit
above everything,
being able to see a lot and
just kind of having the
wind blow in your face.
It's a feeling really
of exhilaration.
I'll remember you this,
I'll remember you this way.
Mr. Blue Sky, please tell
us why you had to hide away
For so long.
So long.
Where did we go wrong?
Are you excited?
Oh, yeah.
George Abbey says
one of the things they did look
at after you were selected was
to figure out whether you could
handle the stress that might
come from being the first woman.
Do you think you can?
I hope I can.
Camera roll one.
Packing for, into the shuttle,
uh, cartons, whatever.
When the
run-up to Sally's flight,
there's this question of,
"Are there really issues with
a woman flying?
Have we thought of them all?"
There was a very
conventional set of things in
the men's toiletry kits.
But what should go in the
equivalent kit for a woman?
Sally was the first
woman to take stock of what
they call crew equipment.
They knew that a
guy might want a shaving kit.
But they didn't know what a
female astronaut would take.
And so the engineers at NASA
in their infinite wisdom...
designed a makeup kit.
You know, a makeup kit brought
to you by NASA engineers.
And then they asked
how many tampons.
Should fly on a one-week flight.
She gets to
one of these toiletry kits and
it's a spring-loaded
canvas-covered thing.
She pops it open.
He asked me,
"Is 100 the right number?"
I said, "No." "That
would not be the right number."
Sally keeps
pulling this out like one of
those exploding snakes
in a party trick.
All six of us for at
least half a year,
would not have used every
tampon that was in there.
5-24-83.
Crew pre-flight
press conference.
Camera roll one, sound roll one.
Good afternoon.
It's really a pleasure to see
such a, a large gathering.
I thought the flying of the
shuttle would become rather
mundane and we couldn't
bring out this size of group.
I think we know why most
people are here though.
Sally, why don't you give
us a rundown of some of the
experiments that
you're dealing with?
Okay, well, we're starting
off the on-orbit operations
really on flight day one.
The only bad moments in our
training involved the press.
They didn't care about how
well prepared I was to operate
the arm or deploy
communication satellites.
They wanted to know what I
thought was extraneous things.
Uh, Sally, has it
taken a little bit getting used
to the idea of traveling
in such tight quarters
with four men?
And do they tend to defer you?
Do they continue their
gentlemanly ways when they're
with you in training?
It really hasn't
taken any getting used to.
I haven't, haven't felt
like I've been deferred
to in any way.
In fact, Crip won't even
open doors for me anymore.
I learned that
right away, Morgan.
Dr. Ride,
do you have any plans to
be the first mother
who has traveled to space?
And Dr. Thagard, are there any
reasons to be concerned about
the effects of travel in
space on childbearing?
Go ahead, Norm.
Well, I'm not
personally concerned.
Jerry Henderson, Time magazine.
Dr. Ride, a couple of fast,
quick questions here,
sir, ma'am?
What are you gonna do after
the end of this flight?
Are you gonna, do you sense
you'll become a footnote in
history, or will
you go on the shelf?
What are your forward
plans after this flight?
Now, Dr. Ride, during
your training exercises,
as a member of this group,
when there was a problem,
when there was a funny
glitch or whatever,
how did you respond?
Do you, do you weep?
Do you, what do you do?
Why doesn't anybody
ask Rick those questions?
That's, the commander weeps.
I don't think that
I react any differently than
anybody else on the crew does.
Anything else from Washington?
Okay. You ready?
Uh-hmm. Go ahead.
Molly, first of all, you're
very close to Sally Ride.
You lived with her
during the college years.
Mm-hmm.
Is this gonna be your first
launch you've ever seen?
Yeah, I've seen
them on television.
But this is the first
time I, I will have been.
Sally invited me to the launch.
And there were lots of
wonderful gatherings for the,
the friends and family
of the astronauts.
And so I was attending
those with my girlfriend
at the time,
so it was pretty fun.
And then I got a
note slipped to me.
That said, "Sally wants
you to come for lunch at
the beach house."
And a little hand-drawn map.
The implication was,
"Don't tell anyone you're
doing this 'cause nobody
can see them
during this period."
You have to make sure you're
not bringing in any germs and
so I had a physical.
And then I was ushered
into the inner sanctum.
So that was my
chance to see Sally with
these other astronauts.
And she just so much blended in.
They just exuded
this kind of quiet confidence,
you know?
It was almost a humility that
you want your heroes to have.
And then she was
showing me her flight suit and
she's showing me her
room and stuff like that.
And she said,
"I'm aware that this
is not without risks,
I could die."
It was one of the very few
times in our lives
that she had
seemed vulnerable to me.
The
night before Sally's launch,
she told me that she was
afraid, that she was scared,
and that a former astronaut
told her that if you're not
afraid, you don't know
what's about to happen.
So she was fully aware
that she was gonna be riding on
tons of rocket fuel that
was exploding beneath her.
Anything could happen.
The night
before you go fly,
you look to the north,
the west, and the south and
this constant
line of headlights that's
coming out to the Cape.
They're coming to watch
you fly and you hope they're
not coming to see you crash.
Your most remarked
upon attribute is you're cool.
Have you ever buckled
under pressure?
Not that I can think of,
but on the other hand I'm not
sure that I've ever been under
that much pressure in my life.
Will there
be no second thoughts
for you personally?
I don't think so.
I, I guess that when
they close the hatch and
light the engines,
I might, I might change my mind,
but I'm really
looking forward to it.
I think
that would be too late.
I think that would be,
very much, too late.
Yes.
Good morning.
It is a beautiful day and
indeed this is Sally Ride's
day to make history.
Plenty of proud people,
particularly female people,
are on hand to watch America's
first woman go into space.
There were some half a million
people who showed up at the
Kennedy Space Center
and the surrounding area to
watch this happen.
And many of them brought their
daughters, little daughters,
sometimes just babies.
Sally could
invite 50 friends and family,
so she invited her friends
from Stanford, tennis friends,
and Gloria Steinem,
Jane Fonda, and she invited me.
It was just unbelievable.
I get chills now
just remembering it.
On launch
day there was so much
happening around us.
I spent an enormous amount
of effort just trying to stay
focused because it would
have been way too easy to
just be lost in the moment.
The crew comes out
led by Commander Bob Crippen.
And the crew will be
going out to the pad.
At the pad,
Sally would have looked
at that vehicle.
There's a soul-stirring moment
when you're standing there,
the vapor around it.
One of those really
moments that, "My God,
I'm really gonna do this."
Looking up and
seeing this huge rocket that
kind of sounds like an animal.
You can kinda hear the gurgling
and the hissing and it sounds
like it's alive.
The countdown
clock at T-minus two hours,
five minutes, thirty
seconds and counting.
This is shuttle launch control.
- Ready for a big day.
- We got pretty day out here.
Good looking machine.
The commander and pilot will
have their seats adjusted and
be placed in the proper
position for launch.
Mission specialist,
Dr. Sally Ride,
now completing her preparations
for ingress into the orbiter.
T minus one hour thirty
minutes and counting.
All five of our flight
crew are on board now.
Okay, we have the
final pilot on the port.
The hatch's closeout
is complete.
Once we were
inside the space shuttle
strapped into our seats and
waiting and waiting as the
countdown got closer
and closer to zero,
my mind started wandering
and I, to focus it,
I focused on the
most mundane things.
Where was my pencil?
Looks like it's about,
I don't know,
a couple centimeters misplaced.
I better move it.
T-minus three
minutes, twenty-five seconds.
The movement check of the
main engines is underway.
T minus two minutes, fifteen
seconds and counting.
The main engines have been
moved to start position.
T-minus ten, nine,
eight, seven, six.
We go for main engine start.
We have main engine start.
And ignition.
And liftoff.
Liftoff of STS-7 and America's
first woman astronaut.
And the shuttle has
cleared the tower.
Watch your roll, Challenger.
Houston now controlling.
Mission Control confirms
all maneuvers started.
Twenty seconds.
Thrust looks good.
For a few
seconds, everyone on the crew,
we were just totally overcome.
Confirmed the
solid rocket booster separation.
The booster is falling away now.
It was a feeling
really of exhilaration.
The shuttle
Challenger has made it to space
once again and Sally Ride has
made it to the history books.
Gloria, it was so exciting.
I was
in the grandstand watching
there at the launch.
There were people with tears
draining down their faces.
People I never
would have expected.
You know, big
diversity of people.
And yet they were all
very moved by the human
audacity of it.
You know,
there really isn't a way to
train for being weightless.
It's so far removed from a
person's everyday experience
that even hearing other
astronauts describe it,
didn't give me really a clue
of how to prepare for it.
What I discovered was that,
although it took an hour
or so to just get used
to moving around,
that I adapted to it
actually pretty quickly.
Challenger,
Houston got a good picture of
Norm and Sally now.
Okay, Houston.
Things are looking good on board.
Roger. We copy
and you all look good to us too.
I just, I
love being weightless.
I think it's a
feeling of freedom.
It's, it's really
a neat feeling.
Good night, Norm.
Good night, Sally.
Goodnight.
When I was a little girl,
I always dreamed
of flying in space.
And unbelievably,
that dream came true.
I can't explain why
I wanted to do it.
It's just something
that's a part of me.
I had the chance to
float over to the window and
look out down at
the Earth below.
At the absolutely
spectacular view,
I could see coral reefs
off the coast of Australia.
I could see glaciers
in the Himalayas.
And the feeling of seeing
your planet as a planet is
just an amazing feeling.
You can look at Earth's
horizon and see this really,
really thin royal blue line.
And then you realize that
it's Earth's atmosphere and
that that's all there is of it.
And it's about as thick as
the fuzz on a tennis ball.
It's a totally
different perspective.
And it makes you appreciate
how fragile our existence is.
It really
changed her to see there's no
borders around countries,
just all the imaginary
lines of humanity.
From
that perspective,
all the tribal fears
we hold on to about race,
gender, nationality,
who we love, all the
arbitrary restrictions
we place on ourselves and
on each other,
they mean nothing.
Sally was
having the time of her life.
And at the same time
probably was concerned about
what was gonna happen next.
This
is shuttle control.
Challenger entered the
sensible atmosphere at
approximately 400,000 feet.
Houston,
Challenger, loud and clear.
Nice and smooth
all the way down.
Real good, Crip.
I'll say it once more.
What a way to come
to California.
Do, do it again,
just anytime.
Sally's foot
landed and they were all a
little wobbly 'cause
they had been in microgravity
for seven days.
Steve is there to meet her.
But the
moment we landed,
I pretty much came face
to face with just a flurry
of media activity.
Fasten your seat belt.
On the ground,
someone hands Sally a bouquet.
She gives it back,
and it blows up.
Sally was just saying,
I'm not a girl wife,
I'm a crew member.
Welcome home, STS-7.
You
are on all the time.
Anyone who can
catch you doing something
a little unseemly,
they see an opportunity
and taking advantage of
something you did
for their headline.
We were Sally and
the four other guys.
The press wasn't
paying attention to us.
We knew the story.
We knew the story
was Sally Ride.
After my flight,
everybody wanted a piece of me.
She was the most famous
person on Earth for a while.
NASA spent no
time preparing me for what
I was going to encounter from
the media when I got back.
Quite a surprise.
Dr. Sally Ride and
the men in the crew are at the
White House today for luncheon
hosted by President Reagan.
This is Dr. Sally Ride Day.
Throwing out
the first ball for tonight's
World Series game.
She would go give talks,
go to schools,
go to corporations.
It was just a madhouse.
I'd meet women
that would start crying when
they met me,
and it was really
overwhelming to me.
It
just took a lot out of her and
she was starting
to feel anxious.
Sally, like it or not,
you're a role model
for a lot of young women
across the country.
How uncomfortable does,
does that make you feel?
Oh, I think it's important,
um, that, that the,
the girls growing up and the
young women have a role model.
So, you know, I think
it's appropriate.
She decided to see a therapist
and she'd never considered that
before her entire life.
She was a star,
but she really tried
to hide from it as much
as she could.
They said, "Crip, we need
you and Sally to go out and"
be on The Bob Hope Show.
I'm a military guy and
when I get an assignment,
I go do it.
I expected she would as well.
Bob Hope did
a lot of gags about women.
You know, this isn't
such a bad part.
Sally didn't
wanna be part of it.
Then she disappeared.
Being first isn't
entirely about the joy of,
you know, the flight.
It's also about the
obligations that come with it.
Captain Robert Crippen
right here.
I didn't
think it was right to accept
the good stuff but not be
willing to do the tough stuff.
I didn't know where
she was but that was how
she dealt with it.
She just left.
Sally came to Atlanta.
At the time, I was living there
and I was studying biology.
We had dinner and Sally
and I sat at a little table
and caught up.
Sally and I, even
when we were kids,
we were always excited
to see each other.
There was always kind
of a good chemistry.
After that, anytime she
was coming to Atlanta to do
something, she'd call me and
we started getting together.
We'd run to the park,
take tennis lessons,
go to pizza parlors, whatever.
That we had seen each
other eight or nine times in
a couple of months.
So this one day in
1985 in the spring,
we came back to my apartment.
I had a c*ck Spaniel, Annie,
and I bent over to
say hi to Annie,
and I noticed a
hand on my lower back.
And it felt different,
like your friends don't
usually do that.
And, you know, I
turned to look at Sally.
She just had this dreamy,
"in love" look in,
in her face, in her eyes.
In that moment,
I sort of realized that
I kinda felt the same,
but it was kind of,
I was surprised.
And I remember telling
Sally, I just said,
"Oh, boy.
We're in trouble."
And she said,
"We don't have to be,
we don't have to do this."
And then we kissed,
and it was all over.
And I asked her,
"You're married.
What are we doing?"
Sally would, you know,
"I'm, I'm not in
love with him, um,
I'm in love with you."
She was, you know,
frequently doing her
own thing, you know,
even before we were married.
I was working in Florida, so
I was down there all week.
You know, I would
call her up and say,
"We should be, you know,
getting in 7:00,
Friday night."
Rather than say,
"Good, because, you know,
I missed you,"
she would say,
"Well, I'm gonna be out of town.
I'm going to California."
Maybe I have no
business asking.
Do you think about children?
Think
about it sometimes,
but I think you're right.
You have no business asking.
- All right.
- We've, uh, we've elected
not to, not to answer
personal questions.
She was
always doing her own thing.
So the fact that she was
gone a lot wasn't unusual.
I didn't feel like we
were life partners.
We were more like roommates.
She would just tell Steve, uh,
"You know, I'll be gone."
And, and they didn't
really talk about it.
But they were still married,
so she had to be careful.
It was more spur of the moment.
Whenever the phone rang,
my heart would
start beating and,
you know, run to the old phone.
I wanted to know
everything about her,
her deepest secrets,
you know, every recess.
Sally would drive from
Houston in her red Fiero as
often as she could.
One time, she came on a T-38.
I watched this little
mosquito jet come in and land.
We did have
the long distance relationship.
And so we just had, you know,
weeks by ourselves just
living our, our separate lives.
And then we get together
and it was just so intense.
I took her to my lab at
Georgia State University and
had her look
through the microscope.
I was analyzing samples
of different types of fungi.
They're actually fascinating.
Like penicillium, it
looks like a tiny plant,
but it's microscopic.
I was down there alone
with Sally in this little
cave of a lab.
I just felt like hugging
and kissing Sally.
And so I start moving towards
her and she, you know,
she's just worried that
somebody might come in,
but I just couldn't help.
I just kept walking towards
her and she's like backing up.
"Tam, don't. You know,
come on. Come on."
You know, I'm like
just going, going.
I love doing that to her.
I would do that in elevators.
If we were swimming
in the ocean,
I'd dive under and grab
her feet or something.
I just love, kind of, making
her feel uncomfortable,
but in a fun way.
It was a pleasure.
My birthday is January 27th.
So Sally had flown to
Atlanta for a long weekend
for us to be together.
And she was flying home on
January 28th back to Houston.
I was on
a commercial airliner.
The pilot made an
announcement to the passengers
saying that there
had been an accident.
Sally
went up to the pilots cabin and
asked if she could come
in to listen to the news.
Five, four, three, two, one.
And lift off.
Lift off of the 25th Space
Shuttle mission and it has
cleared the tower.
This is Challenger,
roll program.
Roger Roll, Challenger.
Challenger, go and throttle up.
Roger, going throttle up.
Flight, JC. We've had, uh,
negative conduct, lost filming.
- Flight, FIDO.
- Go ahead.
RSL reports vehicle exploded.
This is Mission Control Houston.
We have no additional
word at this time.
As soon as I saw
it, I knew the crew was lost.
Judy was sitting in the center
seat between the pilot and
the co-pilot.
Sally also sat in the
center seat on her flight.
36-year-old
mission specialist,
Judy Resnik, was
a shuttle veteran,
her assignment to operate
the shuttle's mechanical arm.
These were people
I'd known for eight years.
I'd worked with them every day.
I'd, you know, gone to
dinner at their houses,
so they were very,
very close friends.
Sally was heartbroken.
She was just, just white as a
sheet in the face and just sad.
And Judy was a big
part of that reason.
And it was especially
tragic to later find out
there had been a long
history of near misses.
The special panel
named by President Reagan to
investigate last week's Space
Shuttle disaster began its work
in Washington today.
The 12-member panel
includes Neil Armstrong,
the first man on the moon,
and Sally Ride,
the first American
woman in space.
Commission,
come to order, please.
Are you ready?
Do you swear the
testimony that you shall give
to be the truth,
the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth,
so help me God.
I do.
Have you
had a chance to go back and
look at the quality assurance
records and verify that, uh,
that those were signed off
properly and appropriately?
That is in process.
That is in process now.
It was a
very, very difficult time.
I was just going from day to
day and just grinding through
all the stuff that we
had to grind through.
The engineers' main
problem was they didn't have
the proof that it was safe.
- No.
- Did you think you had the
database to show
that it was safe...
- No.
- In those temperatures?
Well, all, all I did
was recite the, uh,
data that we had,
uh, available to us.
That's what Dr. Ride
is pointing out.
They say it's not conclusive.
They don't say,
"We think it's safe."
They say the data
is not conclusive.
And you say the, the data
is conclusive to you.
Sally
asked the tough questions and
just held NASA leadership,
you know, to the fire.
And then an engineer at NASA
passing in the hall handed
Sally the data sheet that
showed NASA knew the rubber
O-rings were only
resilient above temperatures
of 50 degrees and
Challenger launched
at 36 degrees.
And NASA tried to hide
the fact that they knew.
Do you think that
there should be a launch commit
criteria on the
seals or on the joint...
I don't have.
as far as temperature goes?
I would prefer to reserve
judgment on that until we, uh,
determine whether
there should be or not.
I have not.
I guess
that's my point.
There, there wasn't one,
but it doesn't appear
as though you have data to
know whether
there should be one or not,
and if there should be one,
what it should be?
Uh, that is a
correct statement.
Astronauts
have a real trust and faith
in NASA to minimize the
risks of flying in space.
And it became very clear that
that system really had failed.
Sally Ride spoke
out for the first time on her
personal reaction to
the accident that has
halted space flight.
I was disturbed.
I am not ready to fly again now.
Um, I think that there
are very few astronauts
who are ready to fly again now.
It
broke Sally's heart because
NASA wasn't quite what
she thought it was.
That was the
beginning of the end for her.
Today, the first
American woman in space has
resigned from the space agency.
She says NASA's shortcomings
became "starkly" apparent after
last year's Challenger disaster.
And this announcement
comes just a few weeks after
Ride and her husband,
astronaut Steve Hawley,
were divorced.
When she
told me she didn't wanna
be married anymore,
it was an odd
combination of surprise and
a bit of relief.
I'm not sure how long I would
have been able to continue, um,
in the kind of
relationship we had.
Sally, she didn't wanna
be with NASA anymore and
I did wanna be with NASA.
So I initially thought, "Okay.
Well, this is because we don't
have a common future anymore."
But, of course, I learned
later it was more than that.
At some point, Bear's
husband called me.
He was dealing with the
fact that Bear was g*y and
he wanted to know if I
knew that Sally was g*y.
I suspected, but I didn't know.
And I think it was
his phone call that said,
"Okay. Yeah, I guess
it's true."
And I still didn't know
at that point, you know,
how long it had been going on.
Sally knew what she wanted
and she would try to get it
or do it.
The rules, you know,
might be an inconvenience,
but we're not, we're
not that deterrent.
And that was just
the way she was.
After
NASA, Sally and I wanted to be
together, but Sally wanted to
look for a university position
and UCSD offered
her a great package.
At that time, I was
getting ready to start a
PhD program in Atlanta.
We just decided to live
through a few more years,
hopefully only three,
of long distance.
But a few weeks later,
Sally called me and just said,
"I can't do long
distance anymore.
I wanna live with
you full-time."
I had to think about it.
I was very excited
about my PhD program,
but I also was very
excited about Sally.
So I moved into Sally's
townhouse in La Jolla.
It was huge to actually
start living together.
Just every day waking up
together and going hiking in
the hills, we just
had so much fun.
Somehow, our relationship
felt smooth through
these big moments.
Sally and I both loved
science, but girls were,
and still are today, less
encouraged to become scientists
and engineers.
We just thought if more little
girls grew up with an interest
in science like we did, the
world would be a better place.
So we started the company,
Sally Ride Science, in 2001.
We wanted to shift the culture
about women and girls in STEM.
We're trying to create
programs, activities,
competitions to capture
their enthusiasm.
Sally wanted to do everything
in her power to
make it successful.
She became much more
open to talk to more people,
talk to kids.
Sally Ride Science was
hugely successful and we
had big sponsorships.
I need to start
by thanking ExxonMobil.
But Sally was worried
about how open to be
about our relationship.
If the sponsors knew that two
women were running the company
and the two women
were lesbos, you know,
she worried that might
ruin our company.
People leak information
and it just happens.
Stuff gets out there.
Sally was very cautious of
the press for that reason.
I started, uh,
Sally Ride Science about eight
years ago with, uh, with
Karen and Tam, as you heard.
When
she was married to Steve,
she would be seen kissing him
and holding his hand in public.
Those were things that
she did not feel comfortable
with doing with me.
You have to hold yourself back
when you're with somebody that
you love dearly.
And you wanna sit
right next to 'em.
You wanna hold their hand.
You wanna touch their face.
You wanna kiss them.
It's the fear factor of
being g*y, being who you are,
affect your work, your
opportunities, our company.
So, the world is
not always kind.
Sally was afraid of
what people would think,
especially her
colleagues, her friends,
how that would change how
they thought about her.
But I wanted them to
know we were a couple.
I didn't wanna have
that awkward feeling.
I wanted the
relationship validated.
Being secret about our
love for each other and
our life together,
it took more of
a toll on me than Sally.
It just ate at me.
I love these pictures.
Uh, my good friend took
these just really sweet
pictures of Sally and I.
You know, a lot of couples
when they first started dating,
they have like a lot of
pictures that they take of each
other during that time.
Yeah. We never did that.
I mean, I wish I had more
pictures of all these great
moments in our, our lives.
When I was in my early 20s,
um, throughout my 20s,
I was more open than
I was with Sally.
I was always open and
honest with my closest friends,
my family.
And there was like this
little hole in me where I
didn't like having to
kind of cover that part of
who I was.
That just crushed me.
It broke my heart.
I shut down.
I loved her to death,
but for a few months,
I seriously thought
about leaving Sally.
I took a trip to Atlanta
to just kind of get away.
And I thought really hard
about having another life.
What I'd do, how it would
be to not be around Sally.
I'd call her every day and she
just would not talk very much.
She was just, like, shut down.
It was horrible.
That was the lowest point.
Many people just don't
understand what it means to
fall in love with a
person like Sally.
Some of the very
characteristics that made her
the woman who could break
the highest glass ceiling
made her tough to be
in a relationship with.
Sally couldn't share with
the people closest to her,
even her sister, Bear.
Here's Bear, Sally's sister,
who's two years younger.
Sally and Tam
had been living together for
a long time,
and one could assume.
We had family holiday meals,
and Sally and Tam would come
over and have baked a pie.
But Sally just never
talked about it.
I was a Presbyterian minister,
as was my wife,
and we came out when
we got together.
But as a result of coming out,
Susan and I both lost
our jobs in the church.
Bear wanted to talk
to Sally about Susan and
also wanted to talk
to Sally about Sally and me.
And so Sally said,
"Tam, will you
please talk to Bear?"
I was like, "Why don't
you talk to your sister?"
You're with a woman.
She's with a woman.
"Talk to her.
She's your sister."
I didn't understand that.
I didn't get it.
When I came back from my trip,
Sally said that she
needed to talk to me.
She said that she was worried
about our relationship,
that things were changing,
and it scared her.
It hit her in her heart.
She didn't want us to end up
spending most of our time in
separate rooms,
doing separate things.
We were having an
intense conversation.
We weren't fighting,
it wasn't, but it was a
little bit of a debate.
And she was standing
with flat foot,
and suddenly she just
rises up on her toes,
and it just cracked me up
and I just started laughing.
I just couldn't, it's so
cute and so different.
I just realized
that I love Sally,
and maybe there's a
way to work this out.
Sally told me that she
always wanted me to be happy,
and we just ended up agreeing
that we needed to find a better
balance between what I
needed and what she needed.
We couldn't change the
way the world saw us,
but we love each other so much,
and we wanted to be together
through hell or high water.
We were happy together
for many, many years.
And then in 2011, Sally and
I were going to San Francisco
for a conference.
We were at a hotel, and
Sally didn't want any dinner.
She, she said she
didn't feel well,
and I noticed that her
cheeks were slightly yellow.
That just scared the
willies out of me.
So as soon as Sally
and I got back,
we took a car straight
to the doctor's office.
And I'm just thinking,
"She's sick, but not serious."
But then I see her walking
out of the doctor's office,
and her face,
I just knew something
was really bad wrong.
And, oh, boy.
And you know, I said,
"What, what did he say?"
And she said, "He
thinks I have cancer."
Pancreatic cancer.
"There's a tumor in my pancreas."
In, in one second, our
life is totally changed.
We were like zombies.
It was just such a shock.
She had extensive surgery,
chemo, and radiation.
But she always
remained optimistic.
She was always Sally.
As
the cancer progressed,
she got sicker and sicker.
Every week, she'd
lose something,
the ability to go up
and down the stairs.
Tam was amazing
during that time with Sally,
as committed as could be.
I loved
Neil Young and that song,
"Harvest Moon."
I would put that on
sometime and make,
make Sally dance slow with
me in the living room.
And it was just, you know,
and she, she was,
had lost weight
and she was weak.
Come a little bit closer.
Hear what I have to say.
She looked very cute.
Her blue eyes are still fierce.
Just like
children sleeping.
We could dream
this night away.
It was
just wonderful to be with her.
Because I'm still
in love with you.
I wanna see you dance again.
Because I'm
still in love with you
On this harvest moon.
We both
just wanted to be as close
as we could.
We would be locking arms
going into the hospital.
The nurse would ask me,
"Who are you?"
And Sally started saying,
"She's my partner."
And it was just like,
just came out of her mouth.
Hospitals used to tell
you that if you're not
a family member,
you can't see the patient.
And Sally was very
worried about that.
We wished that we'd taken
the opportunity to get married,
but we decided then to file to
be certified domestic partners.
It felt almost as
close as being married.
It just, it was really fun to
see both our signatures on that
little stupid piece of paper.
Oh, man, that brought back.
Sally died in July 2012,
17 months after the diagnosis.
It was a wild day.
I couldn't handle the coroner,
so I asked Bear, you know,
we just, I don't, I don't wanna
watch her being wheeled away.
I went outside and just sat
on our patio and suddenly,
I hear a helicopter circling
right over our house.
Cars were pulling up.
Then there was a
cameraman hanging out with
a big old camera.
We bid a sad farewell.
A true American
pioneer died today.
Trailblazing astronaut,
Sally Ride,
has lost her battle
with pancreatic cancer.
She was 61 years old.
Ride was a very private person.
It wasn't until reading her
obituary today that it became
public news that Ride had
had a 27-year-long relationship
with a female partner.
I found out
about Tam the same way the
rest of the world did,
in the obituary.
Oh, I was furious at her.
I was furious.
How dare she not tell me?
And then I felt really bad.
I felt bad that society could
make someone that we admire and
love and respect
feel that she had to hide
something about herself.
About a
month before she passed away,
it was just clear
that the end was near.
We never talked
about death, funeral,
we never used those words.
But then I thought,
"Wait a second.
Who am I gonna be to the world?
Who am I going to be to
the people that don't know
that we've been together
and we love each other?"
She just kind of thought
about it, and she said,
"You decide. Whatever
you decide will be fine."
So when I wrote the obituary,
I just thought, "You know what?
Sally was an honest person,
except for this little thin
area and it's just not right."
And I'm an honest person,
so I, I'm just sick of hiding.
I'm just gonna be myself.
If somebody doesn't
like it, tough.
It was really
a liberation for all of us.
Tam should be recognized
for who she was in relation
to Sally as well as in
relation to our family.
I am going to read
an unbelievable letter that
I received from Mike Mullane.
"I know this is belated,
but I wanted to extend my
heartfelt sympathy
for your loss.
I came to the astronaut
office having been immersed
in all male environments
my entire life.
My early behavior and
word and deed alienated
"Sally from me."
When we got
to NASA, day one at NASA,
if you would have
looked in the dictionary
under male sexist pig,
you would have saw
Mike Mullane's picture in there.
I'm, I'm ashamed,
really, of what, my attitude.
"Sally was a remarkable woman
and faced enormous obstacles
with courage and dignity.
I have four granddaughters.
I want them to have an
appreciation for the sacrifices
women like Sally and each of
you made to secure a future in
"which they won't be constrained
in pursuing their own dreams."
That's, this is
an amazing letter.
Here I was
doubting the women's ability
to handle these
dangerous situations.
Working with them
opened my eyes.
They can do the job as
well as anybody else,
and these six women proved it.
And Sally was part of it.
I think that it's time
that people realize that
women in this country can
do any job that they wanna do.
Space
for the United States changed
for all time when Sally went up.
Women can do this.
She proved it. Done.
She was
breaking trail for all of the
women who've flown in
space after her and she
did it superbly.
There is no fear.
We're out here and my
eyes are clear and bright.
There is no time,
No straight line,
not one in sight.
You can see
Sally's legacy in the many
women who are now a part of
all facets of NASA's work.
All the younger women and women
in science that she touched,
she inspired.
It heightens the likelihood
that they'll try harder,
go further, contribute more.
I'd like to be
remembered as someone who was
not afraid to do what she
wanted to do and as someone who
took risks along the way in
order to achieve her goals.
But I'll return again
I have
thought long and hard about why
Sally couldn't be open
about our relationship,
and the only thing that
makes sense to me is that
she was afraid.
That's heartbreaking
for me, but also for her.
All the people that
think Sally should have come
out before she died or Sally
should have just graciously
accepted the bouquet of
flowers at her landing,
just let Sally be Sally.
That's what made
Sally who she was.
If I showed it, I'd lose it,
didn't think I had a choice
She left us with a question,
she left us with some curiosity,
but she left us on her terms,
and that's the way
Sally always liked it.
Good morning.
Good morning, everybody.
I got a
phone call from the White House.
They said that
Sally was gonna, uh,
receive the Presidential
Medal of Freedom.
As the
first American woman in space,
Sally didn't just break the
stratospheric glass ceiling,
she blasted through it.
Tam O'Shaughnessy
accepting on behalf
of her life partner,
Dr. Sally K. Ride.
Talk about a public coming out,
I mean, that was, uh, big.
It just felt unbelievable.
Finally, Sally was celebrated
for who she really was,
and I got celebrated as
well for being her partner.
The world made it
tricky and painful,
but we were brave
enough to love each other.
Welcome to our World! Where we serve you cookies to ensure you get the best viewing experience on our site.
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Sally (2025)
Moderators: Maskath3, sidolanters, GabrielAlejo2341
Biographies Movie Collection