IndexSally RideLeaves NASACareer at NASASally RideSally Ride's full name is sally kristen ride majored in physics and was also an astronaut, specifically an American astronaut. The most important thing she did was to be the first American girl to go to space and she was and still is the youngest person to go to space. Personal life Sally Ride didn't like other people knowing about her personal life, but we know that she married another NASA astronaut, Steve Hawley. When she died we found out that her partner of 27 years was Tam'OShaughnessy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Tam'OShaughnessy was a professor emerita of school psychology at Santiago State University. Fun Facts Something he did was prove that there is such a thing as a stupid question, he did it by saying that flying will ruin your reproductive organs. She may even have been a tennis pro when Ride was a little girl, she didn't just play a little tennis, she was ranked as a junior player and by the time she turned 18 in 1986 she was ranked 18th in the entire country. Tennis legend Billie Jean King also personally told her that she should go pro, but she decided to go to Swarthmore, instead she transferred to Stanford and finished her undergraduate work and got a master's degree and a PhD in physics. I also found out that she wasn't good at home economics. Her father's name was Burdell Ride and her mother was Carol Joyce Sally Ride was born in Los Angeles she had only one brother and her name was Karen Bear Ride was a Presbyterian minister. Both of Sally Ride's parents were elders in the Presbyterian church. Leaving NASA In 1987 Sally Ride left her position at NASA to work at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. In 1989 he became a professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego, where he was also director of the Space Institute. From the mid-1990s until his death he led two public outreach programs for NASA. The names are ISS Earthkam and Grail Moonkam. Legacy In April 2013 the US Navy announced that a research vessel would be named after sally ride and in 2013 Janelle Monae made a song for sally ride named sally ride and in 2013 astronauts Chris Hadfield and Catherine Coleman they performed a song called Ride On. Furthermore, in 2013 the Space Foundation awarded her the greatest honor, which is the overall James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award. In May 2013, a national tribute to Sally Ride was held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. on the same day that President Barack Obama announced that Sally Ride would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, that medal being the highest civilian award in the United States. She has many other awards, but the most recent one was that Google Doodle honored her by making it part of International Women's Day. Sally Ride died on July 23, 2012 at the age of 61, she died at her home in La Jolla, California seventeen months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. When she died she was cremated, her ashes scattered by her father at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica. Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Career at NASA Sally Ride was one of the top 8,000 people who responded to the ad about the space program in Stanford's student newspaper. Sally Ride was chosen to work for NASA in.