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| Astronaut Sally Ride monitors control panels from the pilot's chair on the flight deck of the space shuttle Challenger during her historic space mission in 1983. Floating in front of her is a flight procedures notebook. (From MSNBC Site.) |
Sally Ride has died and the event has made small news in Australia. I discovered the event by accident when perusing the outlying parts of the ABC News site. Ride was the third woman to travel in space, preceded by the now 75 year-old, Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova and 63 year-old Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya. Ride made only two journeys in space, both aboard the shuttle Challenger which later exploded during launch in April, 1986.
Ride was only 61 and died after enduring pancreatic cancer for 17 months. Ride was a low-profile noteworthy who just got on with the job. She was a contributor during all of her adult life and it is a damned shame that she has gone. She had much more to give.
