Macy Sue - Sally Ride: life on a mission

ALADDIN

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Aladdin hardcover edition September 2014

Text copyright 2014 by Sue Macy

Jacket designed by Jeanine Henderson and Karina Granda

Front jacket photograph copyright 2014 by Bettmann/Corbis

Back jacket photograph courtesy of NASA

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Book design by Karina Granda

The text of this book was set in Bembo STD.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Macy, Sue.

Sally Ride : life on a mission / by Sue Macy.

p. cm. (A real-life story)

Audience: Age 812.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

[1. Ride, Sally. 2. Women astronautsUnited StatesBiography. 3. AstronautsUnited StatesBiography. 4. PhysicistsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. I. Title.

TL789.85.R53M33 2014

629.450092dc23

[B]

2014016685

ISBN 978-1-4424-8854-0

ISBN 978-1-4424-8856-4 (eBook)

In Memory of Mary Rose Dallal

I would 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.

Sally Ride, 2006

SALLY RIDE WAS ONE OF the most famous women in the world, but she also was an intensely private person. She was so private that when she died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012, few people besides her family and close friends knew she had been ill. And many of the millions who admired her were surprised when the last line of her obituary reported that she was survived by her female partner of twenty-seven years. That was the first time this aspect of her life had been made public.

Although Sally Ride lived much of her life in the glare of the spotlight, she did so on her own terms. She gave hundreds of interviews before and after 1983, when she became the first female US astronaut in space. But many interviewers noted that she hardly embraced the celebrity that came with her achievements. Even her younger sister, Karen, known as Bear, admitted that Sally tended to protect her privacy. She doesnt offer information, Bear told a reporter from Newsweek magazine in June 1983. If you want to know something about Sally, you have to ask her. But the reporter noted, Clearly, Bear never tried to interview Sally, because asking doesnt always work, either.

Despite her reluctance to tell all, Sally Ride believed that young peopleand especially young girlsneeded role models if they were to aspire to thrilling careers like hers. So she made it her mission to encourage them. After succeeding as a scientist, an astronaut, and a college professor, she became a spokesperson for science and math, using her fame to spread the word. She inspired future scientists and engineers by writing books; running contests, science festivals, and summer camps; and speaking to thousands of kids in person and online.

Fortunately, in reaching out to others, Sally Ride shared more details of her own story. Its the story of a smart, athletic girl whose parents never forced her to follow a particular path but always supported what she chose to do. Those choices took her to space and back (twice) as she blazed a path into the history books as one of the pioneers of the twentieth century. Welcome to her adventure.

ON THE DAY THAT SALLY Kristen ride was born, one of the most popular magazines in the United States featured a short story titled, Smart Girls Are Helpless. It was May 26, 1951, less than six years after the end of World War II, and the roles of women had undergone several shifts over the previous decade. During the war, the government had depended on women to keep America strong by taking jobs in factories, at shipyards, and in the newly formed all-female branches of the armed forces. Their contributions were crucial to the war effort. When the war was over in 1945, though, most businesses quickly replaced women workers with men. At the same time, many magazines started advising wives to let their husbands take over as breadwinners if they wanted their marriages to last.

Smart Girls Are Helpless, which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post , took the same stance as those magazine articles. It focused on an intelligent, independent farmer named Gail who was successful in everything but attracting a man. She preferred to solve problems herself and consistently ignored the advice offered by her handsome neighbor, Charlie. But when Charlie put his farm up for sale, Gail realized that she wanted him in her life. To keep him nearby, she decided to show Charlie that she needed him. She let his prized bull out of its pen and scrambled up a tree with the bull close behind. Charlie heard her cries of Help! and came to her rescue. His manly pride was restored.

Stories about strong men and helpless women abounded in the world that Sally Ride entered that Saturday in 1951. But from the start, she was as independent and headstrong as the fictional farmer Gail. Her father, Dale Ride, once remarked that he and his wife, Joyce, havent spoken for Sally since she was two, maybe three. The Rides approach to raising Sally and her younger sister, Bear, was to let them explore the things that interested them. Dale and I simply forgot to tell them that there were things they couldnt do, her mother said in 1983. But I think if it had occurred to us to tell them, we would have refrained.

Sally was born in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in a large ranch house in the Encino district of the city. It was an upscale area; another Encino resident in the early 1950s was a promising young comedian named Johnny Carson. He would go on to host NBCs late-night TV program, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson , for thirty years. Sallys father was a professor of political science at Santa Monica Community College. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom during Sallys childhood. Later she taught English to foreign students and spearheaded a group that helped female prison inmates and their families. Both of Sallys parents also were elders in the Presbyterian Church. As such, they were trained leaders who were deeply involved in the welfare and religious life of their church community.

Sallys father was born in Colorado, and her mother in Minnesota. Her mother was the grandchild of immigrants. Three of Joyces grandparents came from Norway, and the other came from Russia. Sallys fathers side of the family immigrated from England, with some of his ancestors arriving in colonial times, a century before the Revolutionary War. Sallys grandfather on her mothers side, Andy Anderson, owned a movie theater in Minnesota before bringing his family to California and starting a successful chain of movie theaters and bowling alleys. Her other grandfather, Thomas V. Ride, worked in banking, first as a bookkeeper and then as a loan adviser.

By the time she was five years old, Sally had already learned to read, thanks in part to her love of sports. She would regularly race her father for first dibs at their newspapers sports section, and when she got it, she would commit the days statistics to memory. But she didnt only read about sports. She also played them. When kids played baseball or football in the streets, Sally was always the best, said her sister. When they chose up sides, Sally was always the first to be chosen. She was the only girl who was acceptable to the boys. Perhaps its not surprising that one of Sallys early career goals was to play baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers.