Science has a way of intersecting with other endeavors.
Such as how the spirit of adventure drives someone to forgo one fruitful career to enter another one full of excitement and, yes, adventure.
NOVA interviewed the late astronaut Sally Ride and asked the pioneer astronaut how she became a space traveler after spending a budding career as a scientific researcher and astrophysicist.
NOVA, of course, is PBS’s widely acclaimed science series that examines our world from a scientific view.
And Sally Ride? All she did was become the United States’s first female astronaut when she flew aboard the shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983. The mission landed seven days and was commanded by Texan Robert Crippen, who was aboard the first shuttle flight ever in April 1981.
It took a good while for the United States to send its first woman into space. The Soviet Union did it first, on June 16, 1963, when Valentina Tereshkova orbited Earth aboard Vostok 6.
So, nearly 20 and 40 years after these pioneering women left Earth’s gravitational bonds, NOVA offers us another look at its insightful interview with our nation’s first female space traveler.
Take a look and a listen to the link. It’s pretty cool to see Sally Ride relive those heady days of space adventure.
A Public View 