Trophy, Silver Bowl, Tennis, Sally Ride

This silver trophy bowl was awarded to Dr. Sally K. Ride in 1965, recognizing her second place finish in a tennis tournament in central California when she was fourteen years old. Ride took her first tennis lesson in 1961, and she quickly became a talented and dedicated player. She entered the private Westlake School for Girls in 1965 on a partial tennis scholarship and also went on to become a nationally-ranked tennis player as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College and Stanford University. She briefly considered becoming a professional player, but decided to concentrate on a career in science instead.

Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she flew aboard STS-7 in 1983. Her second and last space mission was STS-41G in 1984. A physicist with a Ph.D., she joined the astronaut corps in 1978 as a part of the first class of astronauts recruited specifically for the Space Shuttle Program. Viewed as a leader in the NASA community, she served on the Rogers Commission after the Challenger disaster in 1986 as well as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) in 2003. She also led the task force that produced a visionary strategic planning report in 1987 titled, “NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space,” but known popularly as the Ride Report.

After she retired from NASA in 1987, Dr. Ride taught first at Stanford and later at the University of California, San Diego. Until her death in 2012, she was president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company that promoted science education.

Dr. Ride’s partner, Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy, donated the silver bowl to the Museum in 2013.

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