☼ Ride, Sally Ride! On June 8, 1983, Sally Ride blasted off into space on the space shuttle Challenger, breaking through the gender barrier as the first American woman in space. She passed away today of cancer, at age 61. Former astronaut Charles Bolden spoke of her grace and professionalism and said, “She will be missed, but her star will always shine brightly”.
☼ Sally joined NASA in 1978, as part of the first group of women astronauts. She went on two shuttle missions, served on many NASA review panels and later continued as physics professor at the University of California, San Diego. A Stanford graduate, she earned four degrees as well as a doctorate in physics. She was a varsity tennis player too. Later, she went on to promote young women achieve success in STEM careers.
☼ Source: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/people/features/ride.html
☼ Watch: Sally Ride: 25 Years Later
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
Cool gal.
Pin up poster gal for us nerds 🙂
An American hero, God speed.
A native of Los Angeles, Ride graduated from high school there in 1968 and enrolled at Stanford University. At Stanford, she earned four degrees, including a doctorate in physics in 1978. She also was an accomplished athlete who played varsity tennis at Stanford after being nationally ranked as a youth.
Wow, what a smart person. She’s also a very good looking scientist / astronaut ! Thanks for your contribution to science and the space program, Sally Ride !
Tom Lee , I heard a pretty inspiring interview on NPR today with Stanford President John Hennessy who was quite passionate about a liberal arts education even for techies and scientists. Here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/07/23/157132291/stanfords-next-lesson-free-online-courses-for-credit-and-degrees
Also, our Provost Lloyd Minor is leaving Hopkins to become Dean of the Medical School at Stanford.
Here, here for John Hennessy! The sciences teach us how to think, but the liberal arts makes us human.
It’s funny that a lot of the technical information I learned in college is now out of date, but the arts (Shakespeare/history/language) are still with me!
RE> “technical information out of date” ………..I retired six months ago, from software
development. And I’m already (technically) obsolete.
Music, literature, and art… pretty sophisticated message delivery system, don’t you think?
Exactly, Colin Pittendrigh . So education and training ought to teach us critical thinking skills that can last a life time, and the ability to learn and assimilate new information at any age.
Rajini Rao will watch that interview of President Hennessy when I got home. Thanks for the link ! You ‘re always so resourceful ! 🙂
I heard the interview on the radio driving back home today and thought you might enjoy news of Stanford 🙂 I was impressed by President Hennessy.
Rajini Rao
He’s a good university president. Some of his predecessors has had some controversy during their tenure. Pres Hennessy has been guiding Stanford with stability and keeping the school as a top notched institution.
Hah, now I recall the Stanford yatch scandal! 🙂
Yup. Was it the same scandal about a female physician/ professor vs the male docs at Stanford hospital? It’s been a while since I ‘ve read those news.
Rajini Rao ever thought about a post at Stanford? 🙂
Aww, think they would hire me? 🙂 When I get sick of east coast weather, I’ll try to move to the west coast.
The yatcht affair was quite funny..I don’t see how they could buy an expensive yatcht with research dollars. It’s quite old though a President did resign:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1994-11-20/news/1994324051_1_stanford-incidental-expenses-auditors
They went through a couple a presidenst before Pres Hennessy. I’m not aware of that yacht scandal at all.
these schools were also audited:
Johns Hopkins, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke, Michigan and Wisconsin all wound up repaying the government for disputed charges.
Yes, that’s why it was such a big scandal!
What a shame. Then it would takes time for the schools to rebuild their reputation.
In this case, they were all in good company.
But when a clinical trial goes bad, or there is a high profile case of ethics or academic dishonesty, it is devastating. A good reputation, once lost, in academia, is really hard to get back. For example, if a researcher is caught being dishonest, they are disbarred from getting any federal funding which essentially is the end of their career. Interestingly, such people go on to get jobs in industry, which is strange!
Unfortunately there are stuff that had gone undetected all the time. Yes, and those people can go to work in the private sector. Nothing good for the schools. The school reputation is so important to lose.
She was one smart cookie.
RIP…
Was just discussing about NASA with Rahul Joshi
And at the same time looking for some research articles on Cancer viruses…
What a coincidence!
Rajini Rao I heard the same interview on my way home too 🙂 Good stuff!