Sally Ride Quotes

The best advice I can give anybody is to try to understand who you are and what you want to do, and don't be afraid to go down that road and do whatever it takes and work as hard as you have to work to achieve that.

We need to make science cool again.

I can't remember a single time [my parents] ever told me not to do something I wanted to do.

I felt very honored, and I knew that people would be watching very closely, and I felt it was very, very important that I do a good job.

There are lots of opportunities out there for women to work in these fields, ... Girls just need support, encouragement and mentoring to follow through with the sciences.

It's easy to sleep floating around - it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!

One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.

We can see cities during the day and at night, and we can watch rivers dump sediment into the ocean, and see hurricanes form.

Everywhere I go I meet girls and boys who want to be astronauts and explore space, or they love the ocean and want to be oceanographers, or they love animals and want to be zoologists, or they love designing things and want to be engineers. I want to see those same stars in their eyes in 10 years and know they are on their way!

When the space shuttle's engines cut off, and you're finally in space, in orbit, weightless... I remember unstrapping from my seat, floating over to the window, and that's when I got my first view of Earth. Just a spectacular view, and a chance to see our planet as a planet.

But when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at Earth.

Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.

I find myself looking around for other new, interesting opportunities to dive into.

Three Secrets to Success: Be willing to learn new things. Be able to assimilate new information quickly. Be able to get along with and work with other people.

Weightless is a great equalizer.

I've discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there's no need to explain it to them. The other half can't understand and I couldn't explain it to them. If someone doesn't know why, I can't explain it.

So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion - because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.

The rockets light! The shuttle leaps off the launch pad in a cloud of steam and a trail of fire.

I haven't written my memoirs or let the television movie be made about my life.

On both of my flights, everything went very well.

I think it's important for little girls growing up, and young women, to have one in every walk of life. So from that point of view, I'm proud to be a role model!

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.

So most astronauts are astronauts for a couple of years before they are assigned to a flight.

If it wasn't for the women's movement, I wouldn't be where I am today.

I have been a bit of a risk-taker all my life.

When you can feel that close to something you're used to seeing from this great distance, well, it changes a person.

The most important steps that I followed were studying math and science in school. I was always interested in physics and astronomy and chemistry and I continued to study those subjects through high school and college on into graduate school. That's what prepared me for being an astronaut; it actually gave me the qualifications to be selected to be an astronaut.

I had both male and female heroes.

The thing I'll remember most about the flight is that it was fun. In fact, I'm sure it was the most fun that I'll ever have in my life.

Astronauts will remain the explorers, the pioneers-the first to go back to moon and on to Mars. But I think it's really important to make space space available to as many people as we can. It's going to be a while before we can launch people for less than $20 million a ticket. But that day is coming.

I suggest taking the high road and have a little sence of humour and let things roll off your back. I think that's very important.

I've spent my whole life not talking to people, and I don't see why I should start now.

I did not come to NASA to make history.

I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.

The experience of being in space didn't change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.

I think eventually private enterprise will be able to send people into orbit, but I suspect initially it's going to have to be with NASA's help.

I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps.

My parents must have done a great job. Anytime I wanted to pursue something that they weren't familiar with, that was not part of their lifestyle, they let me go ahead and do it.

My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane.

Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.

For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences.

If they asked me if I wanted to go into space tomorrow, I'd do it in a heartbeat. On the other hand, if they asked me if I wanted to go into training for three years and then go into space again, I'd probably say no.

The most anxious time was during launch, just because that is so dramatic.

I don't have any nicknames.

Some astronauts sleep in sort of beds - compartments that you can open up and crawl into and then close up, almost like a little bedroom.

It's too bad our society isn't further along.

The view of earth is spectacular from space. Most people imagine that when astronauts look out the window of the shuttle they see the whole earth like that big blue marble that was made famous by the flights that went to the moon. But the shuttle is much, much closer than those astronauts were. So we don't see the whole planet, the whole ball at once, we just see parts of it.

No, I think most astronauts recognize that the space shuttle program is very high-risk, and are prepared for accidents.