Billie Jean King speaks at the Sally Ride tribute. Photo by Kris Connor/Stringer/Getty Images.
Less than a year after her death, Sally Ride, the first American woman to go to space, was honored as the pioneer she was at the Kennedy Center Monday evening.
Before famous friends of Ride’s spoke of her legacy, NASA administrator Charles Bolden told the full house that the late astronaut will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the nation.
In a statement, President Obama said Ride will be remembered “not just as a national hero, but as a role model to generations of young women.”
Indeed, all who spoke of Ride, who died in July 2012 at age 61 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, remembered her as a hero to all people, but especially young girls who want to go into science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, which collectively are known as STEM fields.
Bolden also announced that an internship to give “students from underserved backgrounds” a chance to research at a NASA center will be named after Ride. A camera aboard the International Space Station that gives middle school students the opportunity to request photos of any part of Earth will also be renamed for the late astronaut. EarthKAM is now run in part by Sally Ride Science, a company Ride founded in 2001 to develop science materials for classrooms.
Ride’s impact on women was very humorously demonstrated by astronaut Pamela Melroy, who graduated from college in 1983, the same year Ride went to space for the first time. Melroy said she was friends with so many female astronauts that her son asked if boys could go to space too.
The evening also heard from another female first, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who became the first woman elected to the Senate in 1986.
In a passionate speech, Sen. Mikulski recalled watching Ride, who she said was one of the first people to congratulate her after she was elected to the Senate, blast off into space for the first time.
“The ground was shaking because Dr. Sally Ride had gone where no woman had gone before. There was no going back,” Mikulski said. “She took all American women with her.”
The tennis legend Billie Jean King, who bonded with Ride over a love of the sport, said Ride “showed us that it’s okay to dream big and go for it.”
King did not mention the other bond the two women had: being gay. Ride’s sexuality was not publicly revealed until after her death. Her partner Tam O’Shaughnessy was in the audience and was featured in a video tribute shown at the beginning of the event.
In a nod to Ride’s love of music and dance, the tribute featured a performance of Twyla Tharp’s “Jordan” dance. (The famed choreographer was in the audience.) The Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra played Debussy’s Clair de Lune while images of space were projected.
Maria Shriver concluded the evening by reading Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day,” which ends, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Shriver noted what everyone in the audience knew already—that Ride did extraordinary things with her “wild and precious life.”
