Autographs
"Sally Ride" Signed NASA Offical Flight STS-7 Photograph
SALLY RIDE (1951-2012): American Astronaut and First American Woman in Space in 1983, physicist, Signed photograph of the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger Flight STS-7.
Official NASA Color 8" x 10" Photograph Signed, "Sally Ride" with the Space Shuttle Challenger Flight (STS-7) Crew, Crisp Extremely Fine. Sally Ride's signature is written in fine blue ink above her photo at the lower left just above her head at left. This is an official NASA portrait of the crew with Sally Ride for her groundbreaking role as first U.S. Woman Astronaut, as part of the STS-7 Mission on the Challenger space craft in 1983. Ride served as a Mission Specialist; she and others crewmembers are listed on the patch she wears in the photo. Ride served on one more NASA mission the following year, spending a total of more than 340 hours in space. An excellent piece from one of America's pioneering women in space. The first American woman in space, Ride's signature is clearly readable measuring 2.25" long.
Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 " July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982).
Sally Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987.
Ride worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle disasters, the only person to participate in both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.