Latest Sally Ride Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I have been a bit of a risk-taker all my life.

  Sally Ride

  Risk, Has Beens, Bits

  Source: www.achievement.org

• It was a real honor for me to get to be the first woman astronaut. I think it's really important that young girls that are growing up today can see that women can be astronauts too. There have actually been a lot of women, who are astronauts, that that's a career that's open to them.

  Sally Ride

  Girl, Growing Up, Real

  Source: www.dannyskidspage.com

• The view of earth is spectacular from space. Most people imagine that when astronauts look out the window of the shuttle they see the whole earth like that big blue marble that was made famous by the flights that went to the moon. But the shuttle is much, much closer than those astronauts were. So we don't see the whole planet, the whole ball at once, we just see parts of it.

  Sally Ride

  Moon, Blue, Views

  Source: www.dannyskidspage.com

• If they asked me if I wanted to go into space tomorrow, I'd do it in a heartbeat. On the other hand, if they asked me if I wanted to go into training for three years and then go into space again, I'd probably say no.

  Sally Ride

  Hands, Years, Space

  Source: www.dannyskidspage.com

• The most important steps that I followed were studying math and science in school. I was always interested in physics and astronomy and chemistry and I continued to study those subjects through high school and college on into graduate school. That's what prepared me for being an astronaut; it actually gave me the qualifications to be selected to be an astronaut.

  Sally Ride

  School, Math, College

  Source: www.dannyskidspage.com

• The best advice I can give anybody is to try to understand who you are and what you want to do, and don't be afraid to go down that road and do whatever it takes and work as hard as you have to work to achieve that.

  Sally Ride

  Giving, Advice, Trying

  "Astronaut Hall of Fame". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 2, 2006.

• The view of earth is absolutely spectacular, and the feeling of looking back and seeing your planet as a planet is just an amazing feeling. It's a totally different perspective, and it makes you appreciate, actually, how fragile our existence is.

  Sally Ride

  Views, Appreciate, Perspective

  "Astronaut Hall of Fame". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 2, 2006.

• There's a huge amount of pressure on every astronaut, because when you get right down to it, the experiments that are conducted on a space flight, or the satellites that are carried up, the work that's to be done, is important and expensive work, and you are up there for a week or two on a Space Shuttle flight. The country has invested a lot of money in you and your training, and the Space Shuttle and everything that's in it, and you have to do things correctly. You can't make a mistake during that week or two that you're in space.

  Sally Ride

  Country, Mistake, Space Flight

  "Astronaut Hall of Fame". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 2, 2006.

• Anything from making a mistake on an experiment that would ruin some scientist on earth's experiment - career, potentially - to doing something wrong with the satellite that a country was depending on for its communications, to making some mistake that could actually cost you and the crew either a mission or your lives. So there is a lot of pressure that's put on every astronaut to just make sure that he or she understands exactly what to do, exactly when to do it, and is trained and prepared to carry it out.

  Sally Ride

  Country, Mistake, Communication

  "Astronaut Hall of Fame". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 2, 2006.

• It was hard to become an astronaut. Not anywhere near as much physical training as people imagine, but a lot of mental training, a lot of learning. You have to learn everything there is to know about the Space Shuttle and everything you are going to be doing, and everything you need to know if something goes wrong, and then once you have learned it all, you have to practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice until everything is second nature, so it's a very, very difficult training, and it takes years.

  Sally Ride

  Years, Practice, Space