This day in history, Sally Ride becomes first American woman to go to space

Digital Curator

On this day in 1983, Sally Ride returned from the Challenger mission that made her the first American woman to fly through space.

Sally Ride, 32 at the time of the mission, was the first American woman to ever fly in space.

Two years later, she gave a speech at a conference called “The Sky is No Limit” encouraging girls to pursue careers in science and mathematics. At the time, women were severely underrepresented in aeronautics, both due to policies that had limited their recruitment and social norms that discouraged them from seeing a future in the field.

“Girls growing up receive all kinds of sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle messages from the environment around them that maybe they’re not supposed to be in science and math … a girl in junior high might open a textbook and see only male scientists portrayed,” Ride told attendees.

On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride blasted off in the Challenger shuttle. She was one of six women selected to enter the astronaut corps in 1978, all of whom would go on to fly on space shuttle missions.

Ride also emphasized that her parents’ support had helped her pursue her dreams.

“Neither of my parents are scientists … neither of them could understand why they had a daughter who was interested in science, but they didn’t impose any of their ideas on me,” she said. “They didn’t tell me what they thought I ought to be doing, they didn’t tell me what courses they thought I ought to be taking, and they encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do.”

The 2025 Astronaut Candidate Class was 60% women, and 40% of NASA’s current active astronauts are women. Though Ride died in 2012, the legacy of her advocacy continues to inspire future astronauts today.

Watch the archival video in the player above.