On June 18th, 1983, Sally Ride launched on the space shuttle Challenger's second mission to become the first American woman in space! NASA had previously screened a group of female pilots in 1959-60, but decided to restrict the astronaut qualification to strictly men. In 1977, Ride, who was previously a professional tennis player, answered a newspaper ad from NASA, looking for female scientists for missions. In 1978, NASA announced that they approved six women from 3,000 applications, with Ride being one of them. Ride died of cancer in 2012 at age 61. The space shuttle Challenger also faced a terrible fate when it exploded 73 seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986.
