Crosspost: NASA astronaut Sally Ride statue to be unveiled in Los Angeles on July 4

By Elizabeth Howell for space.com

Image from space.com article.
Image credit: Steven Barber via collectSPACE.com

An Independence Day ceremony will bring a little more space to a presidential museum.

A statue of former NASA astronaut Sally Ride will be unveiled July 4 outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, situated west of her hometown of Los Angeles, as part of a series of female-focused monuments designed by filmmaker Steven Barber.

"There's just so many great science female icons that we can build," said Barber, who also designed a bronze statue of Ride that was dedicated in June 2022 at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island, in the greater New York City area.

Read more here.

Eds Note: Sally Ride (1951-2012) was the first American woman to fly in space, on STS-7 in 1983. She earned a PhD in Physics from Stanford in 1978, and she was selected as part of NASA Astronaut Group 8. In her class of 35 astronaut candidates, she was one of six women.

Cross-Post: 35 Years Since Sally Rode ...

The US Postal Service recently
issued a Sally Ride "forever stamp".
Image from collectspace.com.

June 18, 2018 marked 35 years since Sally Ride's historic flight into space. 

I was a young girl at the time of Sally's flight, and I don't recall much of the hype surrounding the launch. However, looking back and seeing how she and her five female astronaut classmates (and 29 male classmates) changed - in fact, equalized and enabled - spaceflight probably had some effect on my career trajectory. I do know that by working on the ultraviolet telescope mission, STS-67, and meeting Tammy Jernigan (astronomer) and Wendy Lawrence (pilot), two astronauts who flew on that mission, my plans to do research in space science were solidified. 

Read more at

https://campus.albion.edu/nzellner/2018/06/25/35-years-since-sally-rode/

and/or tell us how these female astronauts influenced your career in the comments below.