Ride, Sally Ride

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Nearly a year ago, Sally Ride, America's first female astronaut, died of cancer at the age of 61.

It's a shame she couldn't have lived another year because today is the 30th anniversary of her historic trip into outer space, and it would be fascinating to get her perspective on how things in general have changed for women in the last three decades.

Things have changed for both genders in terms of space travel; actually, things have changed quite a bit for the space program in general. The United States put the space shuttle in mothballs a couple of years ago. Once in awhile, there is talk of reviving the programs of traveling to the moon or just into space — or beginning work on the much more ambitious goal of traveling to Mars — but little has come of such talk.

And, in spite of some protests to the contrary, it is plausible to argue — in some quarters — that little has changed for women since that time.

I guess it depends on what one considers progress and how long one thinks it is reasonable to wait for it.

A woman had already been appointed to the Supreme Court by the time of Ride's historic journey into space. No women had been nominated prior to that; three more have been appointed and currently sit on the Court today.

Since this day 30 years ago, both major political parties have put women on their national tickets — the Democrats were first a year after Ride's flight, it took the Republicans two dozen years to do the same.

There are arguments to be made about how women are portrayed in the popular media, whether they are given more or less respect as a demographic group. And there are certainly arguments to be made about inequities in pay — although, in the economy we've had for the last 5½ years, it may be more relevant to compare unemployment and underemployment rates for the sexes.

But I wonder if it is appropriate even to discuss those things on this day. Ride's achievement was her own. It was never suggested, never even implied, that her accomplishment would change the lives of American women.

It may have opened some doors in the space program for women, but it certainly wasn't why Geraldine Ferraro or Sarah Palin were chosen to run for vice president — and Sandra Day O'Connor had been on the Supreme Court for nearly two years when Ride went into space so it makes no sense to say that Sally Ride influenced Supreme Court nominations.

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It was part of the steady drip–drip–drip of history that signals an inevitability of some kind.

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was like that. It didn't cause immediate change, but, little by little, attitudes were changed and barriers were torn down.

That is often how history works. Change rarely comes as quickly as some people want, but eventually it comes.

Sally Ride made her contribution to the evolution of women's role in our culture 30 years ago.

But she was a very private woman. Few people knew of her long–term same–sex relationship or of her eventually fatal illness until after she died.

I don't feel she was motivated by a desire to be a role model at anything other than being a good and dedicated astronaut — which she was.

R.I.P., Sally Ride

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Sally Ride.

Twenty–nine years ago, it seemed like the ideal name for America's first woman in space. Well, it seemed that way to me, anyway.

And I didn't even realize it had already been immortalized in a song, "Mustang Sally."

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"All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride.
All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride.
All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride."

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(I'll admit, it doesn't seem like much without the music.)

She joined NASA in 1978 and, in 1983, she rode on the space shuttle Challenger, becoming America's first woman in space.

She wasn't the first woman of any nationality to travel in space. That distinction belonged to Valentina Tereshkova of Russia, who flew in space 20 years before Ride.

But she was a pioneer — an American pioneer.

It would be a perfect narrative, I suppose, if it could be demonstrated that Ride's parents named her after the song. But that isn't possible. Ride was born in 1951. The song was first recorded in the mid–1960s.

Ironically, Ride's historic trip into space came almost 20 years to the day after Tereshkova's.

And Tereshkova and Ride had something else in common. As young adults, neither woman seemed destined for space travel. Tereshkova worked in a factory; Ride was an aspiring tennis player.

But Tereshkova was recruited for the Soviet Union's space program. Ride was among thousands of people who answered an advertisement seeking applicants for NASA.

So their groundbreaking stories, while similar, were not identical.

In fact, there were times back in the 1980s when I thought Ride's achievement was overshadowed by other, higher–profile advances for females — almost two years before Ride went into space, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female Supreme Court justice. And the year after her trip into space, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman to be on a major party's national ticket as Walter Mondale's running mate.

There are certain ironies connected with Ride's death at this particular time. Ride died of pancreatic cancer yesterday at the age of 61.

For one thing, it is ironic that she should die less than a year before the 30th anniversary of her first space trip. What a tragedy it is that she will not be here for that.

It is also ironic that Ride's death should coincide with the renewed search for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane. That search, incidentally, ended recently with more new questions than answers.

Ride's death came the day before the 115th anniversary of Earhart's birth. Another irony. Both women were pioneers in aviation.

It is even more ironic, I think, that Ride's death and the search for Earhart's plane should happen at a time when the national conversation has been centered on Barack Obama's remark about how entrepreneurs did not build their businesses alone.

No man is an island, the president and his supporters contend.

But, if anything, Ride and Earhart did the things they did in spite of the resistance they encountered. It was probably more pronounced in Earhart's day because few women attempted to succeed in any field that was regarded as the domain of men — but little had really changed in 50 years.

I have a vivid memory of the men in the central Arkansas community where I was working at the time dismissing Ride's accomplishment and earnestly wondering why she would want to do what men had been doing since the dawn of America's space program.

So I know that misogynistic attitudes were alive and well when Ride flew in space.

It may not fit with the president's election–year narrative, but that entrepreneurial, risk–taking spirit isn't limited to the business world.

And, while Ride got her opportunity with the help she received along the way, as we all do, her success as an astronaut was entirely her own doing.

Rest in peace, Sally Ride.