Ride, Sally, Ride

I was shocked and saddened to learn of the death of pioneering astronaut Sally Ride. She succumbed to pancreatic cancer yesterday at the age of 61.

While I relish the knowledge that we don’t have to put the qualifier “female” in front of “astronaut” any more, it was Ride who broke that barrier and first had that title. She did it with unvarying grace, verve and professionalism.

She also made it look easy and like a boatload of fun.

I also like that she started out with a degree in English (albeit paired with one in physics). I like to think that her innate critical thinking abilities were honed in the liberal arts environment and that it helped to shape her fluid and truly engaging communication skills.

Ride flew two shuttle missions and then worked at Stanford and San Diego State University, teaching physics. She attracted students because of her career as an astronaut; she kept them because of her dedication and her ability to teach.

That she held out for 17 months against a vicious, predatory son-of-a-bitch like pancreatic cancer speaks to her courage and raw will.

She never stopped serving the goddess of motivating women to pursue careers in science and technology. Space and science were her deep and abiding passion, which you could tell immediately in even the smallest sound byte; she wanted other women to share the excitement of exploration.

Thirty years of girls and young women looked at Ride and thought, "Well, hmm. I bet I could do that, too..."

Ride expanded the boundaries of inner and outer space her entire career and I can’t help feeling that the world’s a wee bit smaller because she’s no longer with us.

In her honor, I’ll leave you with The Commitments singing “Mustang Sally”. If anyone was ever not going to slow that Mustang down, it was Sally Ride.