Passing atmospheric levels of cool 🧑‍🚀🌏 #womeninstem #space

This is how many tampons Sally Ride was offered on her first space mission, which lasted about six days. Like a lot of STEM fields, NASA was male-dominated, and Sally Ride was their first female astronaut. After her death, we learned something very private: Tam had been her partner for 27 years.

I've always admired Sally Ride, and as part of a project, I staged a fictional desk of hers for Stanford. There was one of her mission patches, a photo with Billie Jean King and Gloria Steinem, and of course, a cup of coffee. I also got to photograph some of her artifacts for a Nat Geo show. Her tennis racket is one of my favorites because it was how she met Tam when they were pre-teens.

Her flight jacket from her first space mission was incredible to see in person. When Sally did make it to space, it changed her view of the world; it created an even deeper desire to protect it. And while Sally was not out during her lifetime, her legacy has won the LGBTQ+ community something to be proud of.

She was worried that by coming out, she would lose her funding and instead decided to focus on women's representation in STEM studies. Today shows how the first mission to Mars should be with all female astronauts, and so it's good to remember that.