Sally Ride Quotes

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... view

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

So I decided on science when I was in college... view

By: Sally Ride

On both of my flights, everything went very well... view

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

The most anxious time was during launch, just because that is so dramatic... view

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

The stars don't look bigger, but they do look brighter... view

By: Sally Ride

The view of Earth is spectacular... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form... view

By: Sally Ride

It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

For quite some time, women at NASA only had scientific backgrounds... view

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary... view

By: Sally Ride

Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

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!.. view

By: Sally Ride

Different astronauts sleep in different ways... view

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

I don't have any nicknames... view

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle... view

By: Sally Ride

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

By: Sally Ride

I had both male and female heroes... view

By: Sally Ride

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... view

By: Sally Ride