Sally Ride Statue

Sally Ride earned a PhD in physics from Stanford University before being chosen as NASA's first woman in space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983. She went on to spend her later career as faculty at UC San Diego where the Sally Ride Science Academy continues to this day. Sally kept her LGBTQ status hidden during her lifetime, but her wife has gone on to tell that story. Sally Ride unfortunately passed away at the young age of 61 in 2012 from an aggressive case of pancreatic cancer.