BBC News Brazil
Sally Ride was the first American woman to fly into space. Although she wasn’t the first woman to accomplish the feat the milestone had already been reached by Valentina Tereshkova and later Svetlana Savitskaya, both Russians Ride’s flight captured the imagination of dozens of girls and teenagers around the world.
So far, only 75 women, out of a total of 566 people, have traveled into space. In June 1983, Ride and his team spent more than 17 days around the world as part of NASA’s STS7 mission.
When she died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at the age of 61, she was honored by thenPresident of the United States Barack Obama.
“As the first American to go into space, Sally was a national hero and an important role model,” Obama said.
In recent days, his name and career has attracted renewed attention due to its mention in the final episode of the first season of the hit series The Last of Us on the HBO Max channel.
The series, based on a video game of the same name, revolves around characters Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie Williams (Bella Ramsey) as they try to survive in a postapocalyptic world invaded by zombies.
In last Sunday’s episode, Ellie tells Joel that if the zombie invasion hadn’t happened, she would want to be an astronaut like Sally Ride.
But how did Ride become one of the first women to visit space?
From tennis courts to outer space
Born in the city of Los Angeles, Ride excelled at an early age in something very different from space: tennis.
She received scholarships from various schools for her sporting talent and successfully participated in several national tournaments.
When choosing a career, however, he decided to study physics at Stanford University.
After graduating, she applied for a job at NASA after seeing a notice at the university inviting scientists and engineers, including women, to join the astronaut corps.
She joined NASA in 1978 after being selected from 8,000 applicants.
Thanks to her skills, she was selected to be part of the Challenger space shuttle crew in 1983.
Her work specifically focuses on using a robotic arm she helped develop to find satellites in Earth orbit.
This made her the first American and third in history to go to space, after Russians Tereshkova and Savitskaya.
He later took part in other missions. But perhaps the hardest moment of his career was the Challenger crash in 1986.
Because of her work over the past several years, she was included in the Space Commission set up by NASA to investigate what happened.
The accident, which occurred on January 28, 1986, left seven dead astronauts, but most importantly, many questions about the space program.
Pioneer and national heroine
A year after the Challenger tragedy, Ride left NASA, but never his love of space and physics. She became a professor at the University of California and was a research associate at Stanford University.
In the midst of her academic work, she founded the Sally Ride Science Institute in 2001, which produces scientific programs and publications for young students. She has also written five science books for children.
“Being the first American woman to go into space created a lot of expectations,” Ride said in a 2008 interview.
“I didn’t really think about it at the time, but I appreciate the honor of being selected,” she said.
Pancreatic cancer was discovered in 2011. About ten months after the disease became known, she died at her home in La Joll, California. Her exploits have propelled her into popular culture in the United States.
In addition to being mentioned in The Last of Us, Ride was the inspiration for a Lego collection, and singer Billy Joel included his name in the song We Don’t Start the Fire. The Mattel company also released a Barbiestyle doll in honor of Ride.
This text was published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/cv2n4emm147o