Sally Ride Interview (page: 2 / 6) First American Woman in Space	Print Interview

Were there any books that were important to you?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Sally Ride: There was that all-time classic Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Machine. I actually read a lot when I was growing up. I read all of the Nancy Drew mysteries when I was young. I read, as I said, the Danny Dunn series of science books. I read comic books, I read Mad magazine, and I also read Scientific American. My parents were not scientists and probably had no idea how to encourage a kid who was interested in science, so they decided, well, Scientific American would be a good thing to have in the house, so they subscribed to that. I remember reading that when I was 13, 14, 15, and I think that those are probably my strongest, strongest memories.

You were also a tennis player, weren't you?

Sally Ride: I was a good tennis player. I really enjoyed being outside. I really enjoyed playing sports and started playing tennis when I was about 11 and really got hooked on it, played in tournaments, first locally in Southern California, and then later, nationally, and spent every summer playing pretty serious tennis.

Did you ever consider that to be a career?

Sally Ride: Actually, I did, much to the dismay of my parents, I think, although they were both very supportive of tennis. When I headed off to college, I made the decision that tennis wasn't going to be the central point in my life.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I went off to Swarthmore and started college at Swarthmore College, and about a year and a half into my college experience, I decided, "What was I thinking? I should have been a professional tennis player," and I quit college, and that did not go over well with my parents, but I quit school and moved back to Southern California, and actually focused on tennis for about three months before I saw the light and transferred to Stanford, went back to school.

What was that like, leaving college?

Sally Ride: I was going to say it was one of those impulsive decisions, but it really wasn't.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I had this very, very strong feeling that I had something in me that I hadn't really explored, and it was, "How good a tennis player could I be? Could I be good enough to be a professional tennis player? There is no way I am going to find this out at Swarthmore College, and if I wait until after I graduate, it will likely be too late." So I thought about it for several weeks pretty seriously, because it was mid-year when I actually quit college, it was after the fall semester. But I was completely committed to doing that when I packed my bags and headed home. But fortunately, I took a long, hard look at my forehand and realized that I was not going to make a fortune with that forehand.

What did you do next?

Sally Ride: I transferred to Stanford, which was closer to home, but also had the advantage that I could play tennis while I was at Stanford, as well as being excellent academically. So I started at Stanford the next fall, and declared a physics major and played on the tennis team, so I was a happy student.

Weren't you both a physics and an English major? Those things don't often go together.

Sally Ride: No, they don't.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I was a physics major actually from almost the first day that I walked in the door at Swarthmore, and I was certainly a physics major -- declared a physics major -- when I first got to Stanford. But about midway through my junior year at Stanford, I had been taking so many physics and chemistry and math courses, which were all required for a physics major, that I just needed some courses, almost to regain my sanity, get a little more balance into my life, and I started taking English courses pretty much on a whim. I had a friend who was an English major and so I decided to go ahead and try a couple of English classes, and I really enjoyed them. It turned out that I kept taking the English classes, had a focus on Shakespearean literature, and ended up with enough units to also have a major in English.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

Do you think Shakespearean drama helped you as an astronaut?

Sally Ride: I am certain that it did.

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