…and thanks for all the fish.
I have never had an interest in space travel. I like gravity (although decreasingly so as I age). I have a strong preference for sticking to environments where I can breathe unassisted (which explains my aversion to snorkelling). I also distrust my own ability to get a space suit on properly (hey, Simon Tam on Firefly couldn’t get his on right and he is a mega-genius!!) or pack a parachute. But none of my aforementioned issues ever detracted from my awe and admiration for Sally Ride.
Like every girl who grew up in the ’70’s, I lacked female characters to identify with. Yeah, there were Prairie Dawn, Miss Piggy & Princess Leia, but I couldn’t really relate to them. Instead, I decided that Ernie, Grover & R2D2 were all girls (hey, how was I supposed to know that Ernie and Grover were male names?)
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I love Star Wars. So much so that I have an annual viewing of the original trilogy on the day after Thanksgiving. And like many I know, I thought Princess Leia was a whiny, bossy, privileged brat (I was really pleased to learn that Carrie Fisher is awesomely sarcastic and shares my opinion of Princess Leia). There was a huge amount of press coverage when Sally Ride joined NASA’s space program and I was thrilled that she bore absolutely no resemblance to Princess Leia. Even so, she remained little more than an abstraction to me.
I really got to know Sally Ride after I graduated from college and worked at OMSI. OMSI had a NASA Resource Center where we received videos, photos and educational materials to share with educators. One of my jobs was cataloguing the materials and copying videos for distribution. Sally Ride was either featured or narrated several off the videos. She was a great educator and over time I noticed that I was more likely to watch her videos than many of the others. I can only imagine how many girls she has inspired through her Sally Ride Science program.
I am grateful for all that Sally Ride has taught me and I even more am grateful that she has left such a rich legacy for future generations. I hope future generations of children (both boys and girls) learn and understand that when Sally Ride broke through the glass ceiling, she also reset the bar for her successors.