Ride, Sally, ride

Journalist Lynn Sherr was good friends with astronaut Sally Ride for more than thirty years, but when Ride died in 2012 Sherr said she knew neither of Ride’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, nor knew for certain of her twenty-seven-year relationship with science writer Tam O’Shaughnessy.

“Sally was very good at keeping secrets,” Sherr said during a recent talk at Town Hall Seattle while promoting her biography of the astronaut, Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space.

Sherr met Ride in 1981 when she was on track to fly on the space shuttle and Sherr was newly appointed to the ABC Television News team covering space missions. Sherr laughed at the notion of joining Frank Reynolds, who covered NASA from the beginning of the space program, and Jules Bergman, whom, she said, “practically invented the field of science journalism.”

“Then there was me—who took botany in college to get around my science requirement!” Sherr joked. “I was the color guy.” Ride was among her first interviews, and Sherr said they soon became fast friends.
“We shared a very healthy disregard for the overblown egos and the intransigence of both of our professions, and beneath her very unemotional demeanor, which some found icy, I found a caring and a witty friend,” Sherr said.

Sherr explained that she understands why it took a quarter century of the space program before NASA finally put a woman in space. In the beginning, the need was for military pilots with security clearances, which meant virtually all of the candidates were white men. But when the shuttle program came along, they had bigger crews and needed scientists, so NASA created the position of mission specialist.

“That’s what they started looking for when they reached out to women and minorities starting in 1976,” Sherr said. “All of this, of course, opened the door for people like Sally Ride.”

Ride originally wanted to be a tennis pro but was headed for an academic career when she saw a notice in the Stanford Daily that said NASA was recruiting women. She applied for the gig, and a year later was part of a thirty-five-member astronaut class that included six women, three African American men, and one Asian American man.

“NASA was suddenly looking like the poster child for multiculturalism,” Sherr said, “and all credit to them.”

Ride flew on the shuttle in 1983, and upon her return from being the first American woman in space received a call from President Ronald Reagan, who told Ride she was the best person for the job.
“Millions of other women agreed,” Sherr said. “I think what they did was translate her bold journey into their own tickets for success. Sally became an icon; the can-do symbol of what we can do in the world.”

Journalist Lynn Sherr spoke about Sally
Ride and her new biography of the first
American woman in space during an
appearance at Town Hall Seattle.

Sherr said she never fully appreciated the “psychic price” her friend Ride—an extreme introvert and naturally shy person—paid for her celebrity, and felt especially sorry that Ride didn’t feel able to go public with her romantic relationship with another woman, O’Shaughnessy.

“I think it’s also part of her story, because hers is a story of a particular time and a particular place and a woman who had the brains and the agility to sieze the moment,” Sherr said. “When Sally was born in 1951 outer space was science fiction and women’s rights were marginal. The social advances and the lucky timing that would enable both to intersect with this life of a very gifted young scientist I think makes hers an inspiring lesson in modern American history. She took full advantage of the ever-widening definition of a woman’s place, and spent much of her life making sure it was everywhere. That she could not or would not openly identify herself as a gay woman reflects not only her intense need for privacy, but the shame and the fear that an intolerant and ignorant society can inflict even on its heroes.”

Sherr said Ride’s life is one for the history books.

“She proved that you don’t need the right plumbing to have the right stuff, in any field or any endeavor.”