A "Trailblazer" Life
The year of Sally Ride's historic first space flight.
What is 1983?
This sport, which she competed in nationally as a junior, helped develop strengths she would use later in life.
What is tennis?
The name of the space shuttle orbiter for Sally Ride's first mission.
What is the Challenger?
After her astronaut career, she began writing science books for this audience.
Who are children?
This term for a vehicle that circled and then returned to Earth, like the Challenger, is mentioned in paragraph 4.
What is a shuttle? (Accept "orbiter" as it is used in paragraph 5)
The university where she was pursuing her Ph.D. in physics when she saw the NASA advertisement.
What is Stanford University?
The two new types of professionals, besides military pilots, that NASA began recruiting in 1977.
Who are scientists and engineers?
This piece of equipment, which Sally Ride helped design, was used to launch and retrieve satellites.
What is the robotic arm?
In 2001, she co-founded this company to encourage girls to explore science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
What is Sally Ride Science?
The modern definition of this word is someone who is first to do something or develop a new way of thinking, opening a path for others.
What is a trailblazer?
As a child, she asked for this scientific toy and a telescope instead of more typical toys.
What is a chemistry set?
Astronaut training included learning to jump out of a plane with this device and how to survive in this environment.
What are a parachute and water?
Her official title on the flight crew, with responsibilities for performing challenging experiments.
What is a mission specialist?
The name of the education project she directed that allowed middle school students to take pictures of Earth from a camera on the International Space Station.
What is EarthKAM?
The text states that 35 individuals, including Sally Ride, were chosen as these, meaning they were contenders for the astronaut program.
What are candidates?
The tragic event in 1986 that led to the cancellation of her third mission and her involvement in a Presidential Commission.
What is the Challenger explosion (or disaster)?
The total number of people who applied to NASA in 1977, and the number of women who were ultimately chosen as candidates.
What are 8,000 and six?
The job she performed for two space flights, sending messages from mission control to the flight crews on board.
What is a communications officer?
She was inducted into at least two of these three "Halls of Fame" mentioned in the text.
What are the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the Aviation Hall of Fame, and/or the Astronaut Hall of Fame? (Accept any two).
This word describes the duties or tasks assigned to someone, like Sally Ride's job of performing experiments with the robotic arm.
What are responsibilities?
She holds these two records for American space travel mentioned in the text.
Who are the first American woman in space and the youngest American to travel into space?
This physical sensation, also known as being in a zero-gravity situation, was a key part of astronaut training.
What is weightlessness?
The two specific tasks she successfully accomplished in space using the robotic arm.
What are sending satellites into space and retrieving other units from space?
After the Challenger disaster, she served on this official group formed to investigate the causes of the tragedy.
What is the Presidential Commission?
This adjective, used in paragraph 6 to describe Sally Ride's first flight, means it was important and history-making.
What is historic?