1951–2012
Latest News: Documentary Explores Sally Ride’s Private Relationship
A new National Geographic documentary reveals the untold story of astronaut and astrophysicist Sally Ride’s private romance with her life partner, tennis player Tam O’Shaughnessy. Sally premiered on the National Geographic channel June 16 and is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. In the film, O’Shaughnessy gives insight into their decades-long relationship and reflects on the sacrifices they made to keep it out of the public eye.
The couple were together for 27 years, starting in the mid-1980s and registered as domestic partners just before Sally’s death in July 2012. It was only after Ride’s passing that their relationship became public knowledge when O’Shaughnessy was mentioned as her partner in her obituary. Ride, the first American woman in space, is now widely recognized as the first-known LGBTQ astronaut, too.
O’Shaughnessy also opened up about their partnership to Parade magazine in an interview published in early June. “We kept our relationship private because of the culture of hostility and discrimination toward LGBTQ+ people at the time,” O’Shaughnessy said. “Our families and close friends knew we were a couple, but few others did.”
Just days before Ride died of pancreatic cancer at age 61, however, O’Shaughnessy was unsure of what to wrote in her obituary and broached the topic of coming out. “Suddenly I wondered out loud, ‘Who am I going to be to the people who don’t know we were a couple? Who am I going to be to the world?’ Sally thought about it for a moment and then said, ‘You decide. Whatever you decide will be the right thing to do,’” she said. “Shortly after our conversation, I made up my mind. I decided to be honest. I was very proud of Sally, of our extraordinary relationship, and of the life we built together.”
Who Was Sally Ride?
Sally Ride was astronaut and astrophysicist who made history as the first American woman in space. The California native earned her doctorate degree in physics at Stanford University before beating out 8,000 other applicants for a spot in NASA’s astronaut program. Ride joined the Challenger shuttle mission on June 18, 1983, becoming the first American woman to fly in space. She worked at NASA for eight years before entering academia then founding a STEM education company geared to girls. After her death in July 2012 at age 61, it was revealed she had been in a 27-year relationship with another woman, making Ride the first-known LGBTQ astronaut.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Sally Kristen Ride
BORN: May 26, 1951
DIED: July 23, 2012
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
SPOUSE: Steven Hawley (1982–1987)
PARTNER: Tam O’Shaughnessy (1985–2012)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini
Early Life
Sally Kristen Ride was born on May 26, 1951, in Los Angeles. Her father, Dale Burrell Ride, was a political science professor, and her mother, Carol Joyce Ride, was a volunteer counselor at a women’s correctional facility. Sally grew up in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Encino with her younger sister, Karen, who goes by Bear.
Encouraged by her parents to explore her interests, Sally began playing tennis at age 10. The promising young athlete eventually earned a tennis scholarship to attend nearby Westlake School for Girls, a private all-girls high school that’s now a coed institution called Harvard-Westlake School. It was at Westlake that Sally developed an interest in astrophysics.
After graduating high school in 1968, she enrolled at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she majored in physics. Beyond her studies, Sally continued her tennis career and even won the Eastern Collegiate Tennis Championships for Women’s Singles two years in a row. She also played on the college’s basketball and field hockey teams.
Feeling homesick, Sally left Swarthmore after three semesters to study at a college closer to home and began attending Stanford University in 1970. She graduated with bachelor’s degrees in physics and English in 1973 then remained at the university to further her scientific education. Continuing to study physics, Sally earned a master’s degree in 1975 and a doctorate degree in 1978.
NASA Astronaut
Ride initially planned to become a physics professor but that all changed in 1977 when she saw an ad in Stanford University’s student newspaper from NASA inviting women to apply to become astronauts. Realizing she wanted to go to space, she immediately requested an application. The following year, Ride beat out 8,000 other coed applicants for a spot in the astronaut program and was one of only six women selected.
After completing NASA’s rigorous training program in 1979, she began her aeronautics career as a ground-based capsule communicator for NASA’s second and third shuttle flights. Ride was the first woman to serve as a CapCom, as the position is also known.
Four years later, Ride was named mission specialist for the seventh mission, STS-7, aboard the space shuttle Challenger. The opportunity meant she would soon be headed to space in a historic first for American women.
Before the launch, Ride fielded questions from journalists about how the flight would affect her reproductive organs. “It’s too bad this is such a big deal. It’s too bad our society isn’t further along,” she said at a press conference at the time, according to The Hill. “It’s time that we get away from that, and it’s time that people realize that women in this country can do any job they want to do.”
On June 18, 1983, the mission launched, and Ride made history as the first American woman to fly in space. She was 32 years old. As a mission specialist, she helped deploy satellites and operated the shuttle’s robotic arm before returning to Earth six days later, on June 24.
Ride later recalled in 2008 that being the first American woman in space “carried huge expectations.” “That was made pretty clear the day that I was told I was selected as a crew,” she said, also adding, “I didn’t really think about it that much at the time—but I came to appreciate what an honor it was to be selected to be the first to get a chance to go into space.”
The astronaut again served as a mission specialist on a space shuttle flight in October 1984. The STS-41G mission lasted eight days and marked the 13th flight in NASA’s Space Shuttle program. For her trips, she was twice awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal. Ride was scheduled to take a third trip, but it was canceled after the tragic Challenger accident in January 1986. Instead, she served on the presidential commission that investigated the space shuttle explosion.
Later in 1986, Ride led the task force for NASA’s first strategic planning effort. For this, she formulated a new strategy for NASA and proposed a Mars Exploration Plan, which she published in “NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space: A Report to the Administrator,” informally known as the Ride Report. It marked her final major contribution to the space administration.
Ride announced she would be leaving NASA to enter academia in May 1987 and officially stepped down that August. The next year, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. After her death, decades later, Ride additionally became known as the first LGBTQ astronaut.
After NASA: Teaching and Sally Ride Science
After retiring as an astronaut, Ride completed a two-year fellowship at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control. She then became a physics professor at the University of California San Diego in July 1989 and served as the director of the school’s California Space Institute.
In 2001, she cofounded her own company, Sally Ride Science, to create educational programs and products to help inspire girls and young women to pursue their interests in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Ride served as the company’s president and CEO for 11 years. She also co-wrote several children’s science books, such as To Space and Back (1986) and Mission: Save the Planet (2009).
Following the tragic disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia in February 2003, Ride served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. She was the only astronaut to investigate both the Challenger and Columbia disasters. That same year, she was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. In addition to her contributions to space flight, Ride was recognized for her past athletic career when she received the NCAA’s Theodore Roosevelt Award in 2005. The annual award honors “a distinguished citizen of national reputation and outstanding accomplishment” who participated in collegiate sports.
Partner and Ex-Husband
Ride was briefly married to fellow astronaut Steve Hawley from 1982 to 1987. During their marriage, she reconnected with childhood friend and retired professional tennis player Tam O’Shaughnessy, whom Ride first met at a tennis tournament when she was 13 years old. Their rekindled friendship soon became romantic, however, when they unexpectedly kissed each other in 1985.
Ride and O’Shaughnessy were in a long-term relationship for 27 years and registered as domestic partners just before Ride’s death in 2012. It was only after Ride’s passing that their relationship became public knowledge; O’Shaughnessy was mentioned as Ride’s partner in her obituary.
According to her sister Bear, Ride was “a very private person” but she “never hid her relationship” with O’Shaughnessy. “Sally’s very close friends, of course, knew of their love for each other,” Bear told NBC News in 2012. “We consider Tam a member of our family.”
In addition to being partners in life, Ride and O’Shaughnessy were business partners and collaborators. O’Shaughnessy, who studied biology and school psychology after her athletic career, was one of the cofounders of Sally Ride Science. The couple also wrote books together, including The Third Planet: Exploring the Earth from Space (2004) and Voyager: An Adventure to the Edge of the Solar System (2005). O’Shaughnessy remains involved with Sally Ride Science as the executive director of the nonprofit now controlled by UC San Diego.
How Did Sally Ride Die?
In early 2011, Ride was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The astronaut remained tight-lipped about her disease throughout her 17-month treatment. Still, her scientific curiosity remained ever present. “[One of her doctors] talked about her courage and her thirst for knowledge,” a longtime friend later told Cancer Today. “She wanted to know all the details [about her disease and treatment], as you would expect, being a scientist.”
Ultimately, Ride couldn’t beat the aggressive cancer. She died on July 23, 2012, at the age of 61.
Legacy
Ride is remembered as a pioneering astronaut who went where no other American woman had gone before. This is exemplified by a number of honors and medals she received during her life as well as in death.
She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1988, the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007. In 1984, she received a Jefferson Award for Public Service followed the next year by the Lindbergh Eagle (named after early aviator Charles Lindbergh). In 2012, the National Space Grant Foundation honored Ride with its Distinguished Service Award.
A year after her death, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded the scientist with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Space Foundation recognized her with its General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award. She was later honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a Forever Stamp in 2018 and was one of the first women to be commemorated on the U.S. quarter as part of the American Women Quarters program in 2022. The following July, a statue of Ride was unveiled on the grounds of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California.
Quotes
- The stars don’t look bigger, but they do look brighter.
- All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
- Weightless is a great equalizer.
- It’s time that people realize that women in this country can do any job they want to do.
- I always planned to go back to academia because I loved it—loved physics and research, learning things, teaching, investigation, and pushing frontiers.
- At the time I grew up, the space program was on the front page of the newspaper almost every day. It was the coolest thing around. I idolized the astronauts, but I never thought really seriously about becoming one.
- Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday. You can’t be what you can’t see.
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