Sally Ride , first American woman in space , died at age 61

Sally Ride , first American woman in space , died at age 61

Sally Ride, the first American to have been in space, died Monday, July 23 at the age of 61 years as a result of pancreatic cancer, announced his foundation. Sally Ride had flown for the first time into space in June 1983 aboard a NASA space shuttle, twenty years after the first Russian cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova.
Sally Ride "broke barriers with grace and professionalism and literally changed the American space program," the head of the space agency, Charles Bolden, in a statement. Barack Obama, she was born in 2008, was quick to pay tribute to this "national heroine", described as "a powerful model" that has "inspired generations of young girls" to go touch the stars.
The former employee of NASA "was then beaten to help them get there by advocating more attention [for girls] on math and science in our schools," the statement from the president's office. "Sally's life showed us that there are no limits to what we can do," said the statement again on behalf of Michelle and Barack Obama, adding that his contribution "will last for years."

Youngest Astronaut

Sally Ride was born in 1951 in California, was a graduate of Physics and English from the prestigious Stanford University. She joined NASA in 1978 after answering an ad in the student newspaper of his faculty. It was then the first time that NASA was accepting applications from civil society, and also to women. Dr. Ride was selected with 34 other of a total of 8,000 candidates. For Americans at that time, she was also the youngest to travel in space, at the age of 32 years.
Sally Ride, after two space missions and 350 hours of weightlessness, left NASA in 1987 to work at Stanford. But his collaborations do not end there; She has been a member of the commission formed by NASA in 2009 in charge of reflecting on the US space strategy, which still determines many decisions about the US human spaceflight program.