All You Want To Do Is Ride Around Sally

by Dick Mac

Each time I hear mention of the astronaut Sally Ride, all I can think of is Wilson Pickett's song "Mustang Sally" that includes the lines:

All you want to do is ride around, Sally. Ride Sally ride.

In 1983, Sally Ride became the youngest American (at that time), and first American woman to fly into space. She was on the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger

In 1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after take-off, Ride was appointed to the presidential commission to investigate the incident.

She left NASA in 1987, became a professor at Stanford, and launched Sally Ride Science, a company that created informative science programs and entertainment-style publications geared towards middle-school aged girls.

This morning, Sally Ride succumbed to pancreatic cancer, after a year-and-a-half of treatments.

She was 61.

Godspeed.


Ride, Sally Ride!


1951 - 2012