Sally Ride was the first American female astronaut to journey into space as a part of the Space Shuttle series. On which craft did she fly?

As a little girl, Sally Ride used to gaze at the sky and wonder if she might ever walk amongst the clouds. She did one better. Ride, born in Encino, CA. in 1951, became the first American female astronaut launched into space in 1983. "The stars don't look bigger, just brighter," she said.

Ride, a Stanford University graduate, did not serve in the military, joining NASA after college.

Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). She went on two separate missions on Challenger, logging 343 hours in space combined.

On her first flight, the five-person crew of the Challenger STS-7 mission deployed two communications satellites and conducted pharmaceutical experiments. Ride was the first woman to use the robot arm in space and the first to use the arm to retrieve a satellite.

Ride was the only person to serve on both committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia accidents. During the Challenger probe, Ride provided lead investigators with critical information about the O-rings, which later was deemed the cause of the accident.

Ride, who taught physics at UC-San Diego, died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012. In April 2013, the U.S. Navy announced that a research ship would be named in honor of Ride. This was done in 2014 with the christening of the oceanographic research vessel RV Sally Ride (AGOR-28).