Sally Ride and Other Notable Women in Space History

Two and a half years before its fateful explosion, the space shuttle Challenger blasted off on June 18, 1983, making history on its second voyage by carrying a 32-year-old woman named Sally Ride.

With seven members aboard, the Challenger boasted the largest space crew that had ever flown to that point, including Ride who became the first American woman in space.

“Weightlessness is a great equalizer,” Ride said in a 1984 interview with NOVA, while pointing out how determined she was to do things right and look professional throughout her flight.

Still the youngest American of either gender to enter space, Sally Ride graduated from Stanford University with a doctorate in physics in 1978. After spending a total of 343 hours in space across two missions, she later served as a professor of physics and served on investigation committees for both the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters. She passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2012 at the age of 61.

Over the 35 years since Ride’s historic ride, more than 40 American women have followed in her footsteps, and in total, 60 women have now flown in space. In addition to Sally Ride, here’s a look at five other notable women in space history you should know.

1. Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova spent nearly 3 days in space in 1963 at the age of 26. She orbited Earth 48 times on her flight, and she remains the only woman to fly on a solo space mission.

2. In the 1960s, the United States approved 19 women, including Jerrie Cobb to be part of the Mercury program. Due to a traditionally smaller stature, women seemed like a logical choice to fly the cramped spacecraft of the 1960s. Nonetheless, Cobb and her colleagues were not admitted into the astronaut program after a 1962 congressional hearing where John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, testified that “men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes.”

3. In 1984, Soviet Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a spacewalk. During her 3 ½-hour EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity), Savitskaya cut and welded metals. To this day, she is the only Russian woman to conduct a spacewalk.

4. As a member of the 50th space shuttle mission, Mae Jemison became the first African American woman in space in 1992 aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. She spent 190 hours in space as a science mission specialist, where she conducted experiments on motion sickness and weightlessness. Before she was an astronaut, Jemison was a medical doctor and a Peace Corps medical officer for the countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone.

5. The record holder for longest single space flight by a woman belongs to Peggy Whitson, who returned to Earth from the International Space Station in September 2017 after spending 289 consecutive days in space. The previous record was 199 days. She is the only American woman to serve as Chief Astronaut, and with 665 total days in space, she holds the all-time American record for duration in space for either a man or woman.