Sally Ride: From Stanford Physicist to America's First Woman in Space - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

She had ten seconds to decide whether to be terrified or ready.

On June 18, 1983, a Stanford physicist strapped into a seat aboard the space shuttle Challenger, felt the solid rocket boosters ignite beneath her, and became the first American woman to leave the Earth. What almost nobody knew was how close it came to never happening at all.

Few people realize that Sally Ride's path to space began not with a childhood dream of astronauts, but with a tennis racket, a broken telescope, and a Soviet cosmonaut who beat America into orbit by two decades. Fewer still know what she actually said when a reporter asked if she planned to cry under pressure, or why the woman who trained her hardest for that historic seat was also her closest friend.

The hidden truth behind America's most famous "first" is not a triumphant fairy tale. It is a story about twelve thousand applicants, a law never meant for astronauts, and a woman who threatened to resign rather than spend one more year as a symbol instead of a scientist.

This book pulls back the curtain on the training, the politics, and the quiet personal cost behind one of the most consequential flights in American history. If you have ever wondered what it actually takes to be first, what it costs, and what it changes for everyone who comes after, this story will stay with you long after the final page.

Perfect for readers of space history, women's history, and anyone who has ever been told a door was closed to them.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.