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

In terms of a career, in terms of doing what you want to do, do you think it's important to take risks along the way?

Sally Ride: Yeah, I think it is.

I have been a bit of a risk taker all my life, not always in the traditional way of defining risks, but when I was growing up, it was probably risky for a young girl to decide to be a scientist. It was probably, even when I was in college, risky for a female college graduate to go on to graduate school in physics, and certainly going on to be an astronaut was taking a risk. But I think that it is important to be willing to take that step, to kind of make that leap to do what you want to do, and that is my definition of being a risk taker.
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How do you measure achievement?

Sally Ride: I actually measure it by personal satisfaction. I measure it by my own standards and my own goals, and whether I think that I have lived up to what I want to be doing in a particular day or a particular week or a particular year. At any one time, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to be doing in my life today and tomorrow, not necessarily five years from now, but today and tomorrow I have a good idea of what I want to be doing, and it's my own sense of accomplishment, my own internal measure, that I think gives me the measure of achievement. If I think I've accomplished what I set out to accomplish, then that's achievement.

When bright young students come to you seeking advice, what do you say to them?

Sally Ride: Why are you talking to me? Actually, 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.

Looking ahead into the 21st century, what are your greatest concerns? What do you think our greatest problems are in America or the world?

Sally Ride: The world has no shortage of problems, but I think that one that is becoming clearer and clearer to us now is the global environment and how we are having an impact on the global environment, and I think that my perspective from space has given me perhaps a unique perspective on this problem. It's the only planet we've got, and you can see the effect of humanity when you look back at earth from space. You can see it in a lot of different areas. You can see smog over the cities, you can see pollution in the water. Our satellites can measure differences in the atmosphere, and it's starting to accumulate to a point that we may not be able to correct the problem if we don't do something about it pretty soon.
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That is one of the things that concerns me most over the next several decades.

How would you like to be remembered? What is the legacy of Sally Ride?

Sally Ride: I would like to be remembered as someone who was not afraid to do what she wanted to do, and as someone who took risks along the way in order to achieve her goals.

Terrific. Is there anything more you want to say?

Sally Ride: Not a thing.

You have been great. We appreciate it.

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