Sally Ride Interview (page: 4 / 6) First American Woman in Space	Print Interview

How hard was it to become an astronaut?

Sally Ride: It was hard to become an astronaut. It was hard to make it through the selection process and the training itself was very difficult, 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.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

Did you ever have self-doubts, or fear of failure that you weren't going to be able to do this?

Sally Ride: Actually, I didn't. I am not quite sure what that says, but I didn't.

I didn't have any doubts that that was what I wanted to be doing, and I didn't have any doubts that I would be able to do it. Up until that point, up until I joined the astronaut corps, you could say I was a professional student. I had made it through high school, undergraduate, graduate school, to a Ph.D., so I knew how to learn things. I knew how to study, I knew how to concentrate and to dedicate myself to learning one particular area, and that's what I was doing again, so I was fairly confident and comfortable actually in the environment.
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Did you think of yourself as a trailblazer or as a pioneer, not just in space, but for women in space?

Sally Ride: You know, I didn't.

We all knew that the six of us were the first six women to enter the astronaut corps; we were very well aware of that. We realized that this was a significant breakthrough and that to some extent, we were pioneers and trailblazers, but I have to say that I don't think I appreciated how much of a trailblazer I was for women and how much women would look up to me as a role model and the things that I had done until after my first flight, after I landed, partly because while I was in training, I was pretty well insulated by NASA. They wanted me in training. They wanted me to learn what I was supposed to learn. They didn't want me out talking to reporters and the press and the public. So I was not unaware. I read newspapers, I watched television, but I wasn't face to face with women until I came back from my flight, and then it hit home pretty hard how important it was to an awful lot of women in the country.
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What did you think NASA saw in you that they didn't see in the others, when they chose you to be the first American woman in space?

Sally Ride: That's hard to say.

I think that I had a lot of the qualities that they were looking for in any astronaut that they select. An understanding of the importance of teamwork and ability to learn things, an ability to recognize a role as a member of a team. Sort of an ability to do things carefully, go through a checklist, make sure that you have done, in science, the experiment correctly in space, gone through the experiment or the checklist correctly. I have no idea why they chose me among the six of us to be the first American woman to get a chance to go into space. That's one of the things that NASA does very well, is keep its secrets on how it selects crews. None of us know why we were selected for any given crew. So I know that the commander of the flight, Bob Crippen, had some input into that decision, but he didn't get to decide, and I have no idea how that decision was made. I'd love to know.
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What was your reaction when they told you?

Sally Ride: I was ecstatic. I was thrilled, and my first reaction was probably identical to the reaction of the other four members of the crew who were told that same day. We could not believe that we got our chance to go into space. We were the first four from our astronaut class to get to go, and so we had been in training for four years at that time, building up to this point, and the moment that we were told, it was, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that I get a chance to do this." And it was only after that, not long after that, but after that, that I thought, "Oh my gosh, I am going to be the first woman to get to go up, representing this country."
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How much pressure is there, not just on you as a woman, but on any astronaut put in that position, being tapped to go into space?

Sally Ride: 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. 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.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Courage

You were able to handle that pressure. It sounds like a lot of pressure.

Sally Ride: It was a lot of pressure, but it was worth every second of it.

How do you deal with it?

Sally Ride: I didn't think so much about the pressure. I thought that if I focused on being as prepared as I could, and being as prepared as I thought I needed to be, then I would be able to handle it, I would be able to handle the tasks, and that kind of takes care of the pressure automatically.

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