born May 26, 1951, Encino, Calif., U.S.
U.S. astronaut.
She received a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 1977 and joined NASA the same year. In 1983 she participated in the seventh space-shuttle mission, aboard the Challenger , as flight engineer, becoming the first American woman and the third woman internationally (after the Russians Valentina Tereshkova [1963], and Svetlana Savitskaya [1982]) to fly into outer space. She went on to become director of the California Space Institute at UC–San Diego in 1989. From 1999 Ride worked on Internet-based projects related to space and pursued her longtime interest in encouraging young women to study science and mathematics.