Sally Ride

Sally Kirsten Ride was the first American woman to fly in space, going aloft in the space shuttle Challenger in 1983 and again in 1984. (The very first woman in space was the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who flew aboard Vostok 6 in 1963.) Ride earned a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 1978 and joined NASA's astronaut training program the next year. After the Challenger exploded during a 1986 launch, Ride served on the presidential commission investigating the accident. She retired from the astronaut corps in 1987, later becoming a physics professor at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and president of the Internet site Space.com. In 2001 she founded Imaginary Lines, a company aimed at supporting the scientific interests of girls.

Extra credit: R&B singer Wilson Pickett's hit tune "Mustang Sally" includes the chorus, "All you want to do is ride around Sally / ride Sally ride." The connection is coincidental; Pickett recorded the tune in the 1966, after Ride was born but long before she became famous.