Sally Ride quotes

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

#Couple #Women #Years

If we want scientists and engineers in the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys.
-- Sally Ride

#Girl #Boys #Want

So I decided on science when I was in college.
-- Sally Ride

#College

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
-- Sally Ride

#Travel #Adventure #History

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

#Fun #Space #Facts

I suggest taking the high road and have a little sence of humour and let things roll off your back. I think that's very important.
-- Sally Ride

#Bad Ass #Thinking #Important

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

#Bad Ass #Order #Goal

When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.
-- Sally Ride

#Space #Waiting #Sitting

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

#Girl #Encouragement #Opportunity

Our future lies with today's kids and tomorrow's space exploration.
-- Sally Ride

#Lying #Kids #Space

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

#Future #Moon #Thinking

Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.
-- Sally Ride

#Responsibility #Space #Special

Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.
-- Sally Ride

#Hands #Space #Robots

Ever been to Disneyland? That was definitely an E ticket!
-- Sally Ride

#Tickets #Disneyland

It's too bad our society isn't further along.
-- Sally Ride

#Our Society

Some astronauts sleep in sort of beds - compartments that you can open up and crawl into and then close up, almost like a little bedroom.
-- Sally Ride

#Sleep #Bed #Littles

The astronauts who came in with me in my astronaut class - my class had 29 men and 6 women - those men were all very used to working with women.
-- Sally Ride

#Men #Class #Astronaut

The space shuttle is a better and safer rocket than it was before the Challenger accident.
-- Sally Ride

#Space #Rockets #Accidents

The view of Earth is spectacular.
-- Sally Ride

#Views #Earth #Spectacular

I can't remember a single time [my parents] ever told me not to do something I wanted to do.
-- Sally Ride

#Parent #Remember #Wanted

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

#Spiritual #Space #Perspective

You know, I go around the country a lot.
-- Sally Ride

#Country

It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.
-- Sally Ride

#Space #Years #Missions

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

#Fun #Curiosity #Natural

If it wasn't for the women's movement, I wouldn't be where I am today.
-- Sally Ride

#Movement #Today

I haven't written my memoirs or let the television movie be made about my life.
-- Sally Ride

#Television #Made #Memoir

I had both male and female heroes.
-- Sally Ride

#Hero #Males #Female

I don't have any nicknames.
-- Sally Ride

#Nicknames

The rockets light! The shuttle leaps off the launch pad in a cloud of steam and a trail of fire.
-- Sally Ride

#Light #Fire #Clouds

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

#Ocean #Night #Cities

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

#Country #Jobs #Thinking

I find myself looking around for other new, interesting opportunities to dive into.
-- Sally Ride

#Opportunity #Interesting

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

#Girl #Stars #Ocean

The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.
-- Sally Ride

#Space #Different #Astronaut

So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.
-- Sally Ride

#Couple #Years #Flight

So I saw many planets, and they looked just a little bit brighter than they do from Earth.
-- Sally Ride

#Earth #Littles #Saws

The stars don't look bigger, but they do look brighter.
-- Sally Ride

#Stars #Looks #Bigger

The most anxious time was during launch, just because that is so dramatic.
-- Sally Ride

#Dramatic #Anxious

Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.
-- Sally Ride

#Kings #Hero #Player

Different astronauts sleep in different ways.
-- Sally Ride

#Sleep #Different #Way

Even though NASA tries to simulate launch, and we practice in simulators, it's not the same - it's not even close to the same.
-- Sally Ride

#Practice #Trying #Nasa

For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences.
-- Sally Ride

#Long #Way #Obstacles

I did not come to NASA to make history.
-- Sally Ride

#Nasa

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

#People #Common Sense #Needs

I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.
-- Sally Ride

#Space #Floating #Flight

I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.
-- Sally Ride

#Math #Astronomy #My Favorite

But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.
-- Sally Ride

#School #Space #Juniors

After the Challenger accident, NASA put in a lot of time to improve the safety of the space shuttle to fix the things that had gone wrong.
-- Sally Ride

#Space #Safety #Gone

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

#Girl #Teacher #Encouragement

I didn't really decide that I wanted to be an astronaut for sure until the end of college.
-- Sally Ride

#College #Astronaut #Ends

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

#Jobs #People #Important

It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!
-- Sally Ride

#Sleep #Floating #Easy

I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps.
-- Sally Ride

#Running #Hiking #Space

I've spent my whole life not talking to people, and I don't see why I should start now.
-- Sally Ride

#Talking #People #Should

My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane.
-- Sally Ride

#Airplane #Flight #Physics

Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.
-- Sally Ride

#Rockets #Way #Tough

But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.
-- Sally Ride

#Earth #Window

One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.
-- Sally Ride

#Office #Astronaut #Share

I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.
-- Sally Ride

#Careers #Long #Tennis

I think eventually private enterprise will be able to send people into orbit, but I suspect initially it's going to have to be with NASA's help.
-- Sally Ride

#Thinking #People #Orbit

It's no secret that I've been reluctant to use my name for things.
-- Sally Ride

#Names #Secret #Use

For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds.
-- Sally Ride

#Nasa #Backgrounds

It's well known that many girls have a tendency to dumb down when they're in middle school.
-- Sally Ride

#Girl #School #Dumb

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

#Clothes #Space #T Shirt

On a standard space shuttle crew, two of the astronauts have a test pilot background - the commander and the pilot.
-- Sally Ride

#Two #Space #Pilots

On both of my flights, everything went very well.
-- Sally Ride

#Flight #Wells

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

#Bad Ass #Years #May

Well, we spend an awful lot of our time working and doing experiments. It's very busy up on the shuttle.
-- Sally Ride

#Awful #Busy #Wells

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

#Girl #Growing Up #Thinking

My parents must have done a great job. Anytime I wanted to pursue something that they weren't familiar with, that was not part of their lifestyle, they let me go ahead and do it.
-- Sally Ride

#Jobs #Parent #Done

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

#Years #Together #Flight

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

#Firsts #Excited #Worried

When you can feel that close to something you're used to seeing from this great distance, well, it changes a person.
-- Sally Ride

#Distance #Bad Ass #Used

Weightless is a great equalizer.
-- Sally Ride

#Bad Ass #Ass

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

#Bad Ass #Space #People

That's something that is almost part of being human and I'm certain that will continue.
-- Sally Ride

#Being Human #Certain #Humans

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

#Girl #Jobs #Bad Ass

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

#Lying #Heart #Bad Ass

No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.
-- Sally Ride

#Thinking #Space #Risk

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

#Cutting #Views #Space

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

#Loss #Way #Emergencies

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

#Mars #Pushing #Study

The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.
-- Sally Ride

#Bad Ass #Space #Expectations