Sally Kristen Ride was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman in space. She was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya. The ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. These Sally Ride quotes will motivate you.
Inspirational Sally Ride Quotes
- “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
- “The best advice I can give anybody is to try to understand who you are and what you want to do, and don’t be afraid to go down that road and do whatever it takes and work as hard as you have to work to achieve that.” ~ Sally Ride
- “If we want scientists and engineers in the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Three Secrets to Success: Be willing to learn new things. Be able to assimilate new information quickly. Be able to get along with and work with other people.” ~ Sally Ride
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“All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I never went into physics or the astronaut corps to become a role model. But after my first flight, it became clear to me that I was one. And I began to understand the importance of that to people. Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday. You can’t be what you can’t see.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The stars don’t look bigger, but they do look brighter.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The view of earth is absolutely spectacular, and the feeling of looking back and seeing your planet as a planet is just an amazing feeling. It’s a totally different perspective, and it makes you appreciate, actually, how fragile our existence is.” ~ Sally Ride
- “It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.” ~ Sally Ride
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“Our future lies with today’s kids and tomorrow’s space exploration.” ~ Sally Ride
- “There are lots of opportunities out there for women to work in these fields, … Girls just need support, encouragement and mentoring to follow through with the sciences.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I suggest taking the high road and have a little sense of humor and let things roll off your back. I think that’s very important.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It’s posing questions and coming up with a method. It’s delving in.” ~ Sally Ride
- “For whatever reason, I didn’t succumb to the stereotype that science wasn’t for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.” ~ Sally Ride
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“We need to make science cool again.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I did not come to NASA to make history.” ~ Sally Ride
- “When you’re getting ready to launch into space, you’re sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.” ~ Sally Ride
- “When you can feel that close to something you’re used to seeing from this great distance, well, it changes a person.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I’ve spent my whole life not talking to people, and I don’t see why I should start now.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I think it’s important for little girls growing up, and young women, to have one in every walk of life. So from that point of view, I’m proud to be a role model!” ~ Sally Ride
- “It was a real honor for me to get to be the first woman astronaut. I think it’s really important that young girls that are growing up today can see that women can be astronauts too. There have actually been a lot of women, who are astronauts, that that’s a career that’s open to them.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The thing I’ll remember most about the flight is that it was fun. In fact, I’m sure it was the most fun that I’ll ever have in my life.” ~ Sally Ride
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“Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The most important steps that I followed were studying math and science in school. I was always interested in physics and astronomy and chemistry and I continued to study those subjects through high school and college on into graduate school. That’s what prepared me for being an astronaut; it actually gave me the qualifications to be selected to be an astronaut.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Everywhere I go I meet girls and boys who want to be astronauts and explore space, or they love the ocean and want to be oceanographers, or they love animals and want to be zoologists, or they love designing things and want to be engineers. I want to see those same stars in their eyes in 10 years and know they are on their way!” ~ Sally Ride
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“I can’t remember a single time [my parents] ever told me not to do something I wanted to do.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Studying whether there’s life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there’s something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That’s something that is almost part of being human, and I’m certain that will continue.” ~ Sally Ride, Sally Ride quotes on Mars
- “You can picture pretty easily if there were a paying passenger aboard a rocket that failed, like Challenger failed. Certainly it would be a tragedy, and a tragedy for the company. They would have a hard time recovering from it.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Suppose you came across a woman lying on the street with an elephant sitting on her chest. You notice she is short of breath. Shortness of breath can be a symptom of heart problems. In her case, the much more likely cause is the elephant on her chest. For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences. That is the elephant. Until the playing field has veen leveled and lingering stereotypes are gone, you can’t even ask the question.” ~ Sally Ride
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“I have been a bit of a risk-taker all my life.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Anything from making a mistake on an experiment that would ruin some scientist on earth’s experiment – career, potentially – to doing something wrong with the satellite that a country was depending on for its communications, to making some mistake that could actually cost you and the crew either a mission or your lives. So there is a lot of pressure that’s put on every astronaut to just make sure that he or she understands exactly what to do, exactly when to do it, and is trained and prepared to carry it out.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.” ~ Sally Ride
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“I find myself looking around for other new, interesting opportunities to dive into.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The rockets light! The shuttle leaps off the launch pad in a cloud of steam and a trail of fire.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I have a lot of common sense. I know what needs to be done and how to approach it. I have an ability to work with people on large enterprises.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The view of earth is spectacular from space. Most people imagine that when astronauts look out the window of the shuttle they see the whole earth like that big blue marble that was made famous by the flights that went to the moon. But the shuttle is much, much closer than those astronauts were. So we don’t see the whole planet, the whole ball at once, we just see parts of it.” ~ Sally Ride, Sally Ride quotes on earth
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“Weightless is a great equalizer.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I’ve discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there’s no need to explain it to them. The other half can’t understand and I couldn’t explain it to them. If someone doesn’t know why, I can’t explain it.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Astronauts will remain the explorers, the pioneers-the first to go back to moon and on to Mars. But I think it’s really important to make space space available to as many people as we can. It’s going to be a while before we can launch people for less than $20 million a ticket. But that day is coming.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.” ~ Sally Ride
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“On both of my flights, everything went very well.” ~ Sally Ride
- “If it wasn’t for the women’s movement, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” ~ Sally Ride
- “If they asked me if I wanted to go into space tomorrow, I’d do it in a heartbeat. On the other hand, if they asked me if I wanted to go into training for three years and then go into space again, I’d probably say no.” ~ Sally Ride
- “It’s too bad our society isn’t further along.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.” ~ Sally Ride
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“I don’t have any nicknames.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The pressure suit helps if something goes wrong during launch or re-entry – astronauts have a way to parachute off the shuttle. The suits protect you from loss of pressure in case of emergency.” ~ Sally Ride
- “We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form.” ~ Sally Ride
- “For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences.” ~ Sally Ride
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“I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I liked math – that was my favorite subject – and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I think maybe it’s too bad that our society isn’t further along and this is such a big deal. I think it’s time…that people realize that women in this country can do any job they want to do.” ~ Sally Ride
- “NASA has to approve whatever we wear, so there are clothes to choose from, like space shorts – we wear those a lot – and NASA T-shirts.” ~ Sally Ride
- “No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I love the John Glenn model… I may call NASA in 25 years or so, and see if they’d like to send me to Mars.” ~ Sally Ride
- “So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion – because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there’s not very much you can do.” ~ Sally Ride
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“That’s something that is almost part of being human and I’m certain that will continue.” ~ Sally Ride
- “When the space shuttle’s engines cut off, and you’re finally in space, in orbit, weightless… I remember unstrapping from my seat, floating over to the window, and that’s when I got my first view of Earth. Just a spectacular view, and a chance to see our planet as a planet.” ~ Sally Ride
- “So I decided on science when I was in college.” ~ Sally Ride
- “The experience of being in space didn’t change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.” ~ Sally Ride, Sally Ride quotes on space
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“One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.” ~ Sally Ride
- “Ever been to Disneyland? That was definitely an E-ticket!” ~ Sally Ride
- “Once you are assigned to a flight, the whole crew is assigned at the same time, and then that crew trains together for a whole year to prepare for that flight.” ~ Sally Ride
- “I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.” ~ Sally Ride
