Sally Ride
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Sally Kristen Ride was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. She was the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space, having done so at the age of 32.
Ride in 1984
During training in May 1983
In a NASA T-38 Talon jet
Communicating with ground controllers from the flight deck during the STS-7 mission
Astronaut
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An astronaut is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II using a Manned Maneuvering Unit outside Space Shuttle Challenger on shuttle mission STS-41-B in 1984
Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 (1961)
The first sixteen NASA astronauts to be selected, February 1963. Back row: White, McDivitt, Young, See, Conrad, Borman, Armstrong, Stafford, Lovell. Front row: Cooper, Grissom, Carpenter, Schirra, Glenn, Shepard, Slayton.
The first eleven Soviet cosmonauts to fly, July 1965. Back row, left to right: Leonov, Titov, Bykovsky, Yegorov, Popovich; front row: Komarov, Gagarin, Tereshkova, Nikolayev, Feoktistov, Belyayev.