Astronaut Sally Ride

Sally Ride never dreamed she would be the first American woman to fly in space. Her career as an astronaut began in 1977, when she answered a newspaper ad placed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which was soliciting applications from young scientists to serve as "mission specialists" on future space flights. After a long process of evaluation, Ride was accepted into the space program, which had previously recruited only male military test pilots. Ride was not the first woman in space, however. A Russian woman, Valentina Tereshkova, had accompanied a team of astronauts as early as 1963; a second Russian, Svetlana Savitskaya, flew one year before Ride in 1982.