The White House announced last Monday that the president will be giving Sally Ride a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom award.
The late Sally Kristen Ride was an American physicist and astronaut who joined NASA in 1978. She was the first woman in space and the youngest American astronaut in space in 1983.
During her time, the media questioned her gender and doubted if a woman can really stay in space. She was asked questions like "Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?" and "Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?" However, she said that she sees herself as an astronaut and not a woman. Her first flight was via the Space Shuttle Challenger STS-7.
Aside from being an astronaut, she also made relevant contributions to NASA. She spearheaded the agency’s first strategic planning effort, helped develop the Space Shuttle’s robot arm, and founded NASA's Office of Exploration. She also wrote a report titled "NASA Leadership and America's Future in Space".
After almost 9 years of working for NASA, she left the agency and went back to teaching at Stanford University. She also led public outreach programs that allow high school students to study the imagery of Earth.
As part of her goal to encourage women to study science, she founded Sally Ride Science in 2001, a company that designs science programs and publications for students with more focus on girls.
She passed away at age 61 due to pancreatic cancer.
"We remember Sally Ride not just as a national hero, but as a role model to generations of young women," Obama said in a statement. "Sally inspired us to reach for the stars, and she advocated for a greater focus on the science, technology, engineering and math that would help us get there."
