A Woman In Space

When I was a sophomore in high school, someone at the school interrupted our class one day to announce that there had been an event. She wheeled in a television and we all watched a news report on the space shuttle Challenger, which had just exploded in midair killing all seven people on board including, Christa McAuliffe. McAuliffe, 37, was the same age as my mother. She wasn’t an astronaut, she was a teacher; a regular person who had won the incredible opportunity of going to space. Only she never got to space.

Watching the explosion and the aftermath, seeing the faces of the astronauts on board, and imagining all their hopes and dreams for going to space was devastating. I was reminded of the stories my mom had told me about the day President Kennedy had been killed. She too was in school. She was almost exactly the same age that I was when it happened. At the time, as a self-absorbed teenager, I wasn’t really aware of those coincidences; all I knew is that it was my first experience with a national tragedy and I would never forget it.

Two years before, my family had gone to see the space shuttle Challenger land at Edwards Air Force Base not too far from where we lived. We drove several hours to the hot California desert and then stood, windblown, on the flat barren earth for about 40 minutes listening to transmissions from the control room. Then, people started pointing at the sky. It was hard to see but there was just the tiniest speck of something up there. A bright light glimmering in the biggest, bluest sky I’d ever seen. It made a wide slow arc and then we heard two loud booms. Before my dad had finished explaining what a sonic boom was, the Challenger had stealthily approached and was on the ground trailing a cloud of dust. We roared with applause. Moments later, the astronauts disembarked and it was like watching aliens land on earth. They came from outer space.

©2014 by Angelique Little

I had only the faintest idea then that I was witnessing history. Sally Ride had become the first American woman to go to space. Following the Challenger explosion and the death of Christa McAuliffe, the uniqueness of a woman in space was brought to the fore and I knew then without a doubt that more than the sound barrier had been broken. Growing up, I’d always envisioned astronauts as men. I drank my milk out of the Apollo glasses issued in 1969 to commemorate Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. Sally Ride hadn’t just been the first American woman in space; she was a physicist with a PhD. She was young and pretty and brilliant. And she was an astronaut. When she finished her maiden voyage, the controllers corrected their statement, “All five crewman doing a walk around inspection,” to “all five crew members.” Powerful changes began occurring in the hearts and minds of all Americans.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, Buzz Aldrin

Of course, I didn’t think about any of this at the time. I was only vaguely aware of women doing amazing things but I was acutely aware of inequality. At four, I proclaimed a desire to be the first woman president. As I near the age when that I could feasibly be the president, I find myself thinking much the same thing. It's time and why haven't we voted a woman into that office? My mother became an engineer in 1984 so I was more aware than some about what it took to be a pioneer but it wasn’t until many years later that I really appreciated what she, Sally Ride and even Christa McAuliffe were doing for girls and women.

By pursuing and achieving their dreams, regardless of their sex, these women profoundly affected the rest of us. By living their lives the way they wanted and not the way others may have wanted, they were forging new paths that women after them would follow. In a male-dominated world, it takes many, many firsts, examples and role models for girls and women to understand that they can do anything; that they too are brilliant and talented and can contribute. It wasn’t until this week, when I heard a radio interview about a new biography on Sally Ride, that I even really thought of and appreciated this amazing woman.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, Sally Ride

We desperately need heroes and far too often they’re out there and we simply aren’t aware of them. In the interview about her book, Lynn Sherr talks about the jokes that were made on the Tonight Show every night about Sally and how they, at some point, ceased to be funny and even elicited boos from the audience. “The idea of a woman as astronaut,” she says, “went from being a punchline to a matter of national pride.” It’s critical that we hear, tell and inspire stories of remarkable women until, quite frankly, they become unremarkable.