On June 18th, 1983, NASA physicist Dr. Sally Ride became the first American woman astronaut to fly in space. Orbiting Earth on Space Shuttle Challenger, she inspired an entire generation to follow their interests in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) as she operated the shuttle’s robotic arm to deploy two communications satellites.
She flew on Challenger again in 1984, and in 2001, she continued her mission on the ground by cofounding Sally Ride Science, an organization dedicated to helping students stick with STEM as they go through school.
On May 26th, 2015, what would have been her 64th birthday, Google celebrated Dr. Ride with the short video above, giving a behind-the-scenes peek at Google animator Olivia Huynh’s Google Doodles:
Related watching: An ABC News report of Dr. Ride’s 1983 Challenger launch.
Related reading: Though Dr. Ride was the first American woman in space, she was the third woman from Earth, joining cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982) in the history books.
Watch this next: Dr. Mae Jemison, NASA Astronaut.Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.