Sally Ride was born in Los Angeles in 1951 , and is the oldest child of Carol Joyce (née Anderson) and Dale Burdell Ride. She is of Norwegian ancestry. Sally has a sister named Karen 'Bearful' Ride, who became a Presbyterian minister. Dr. Ride attended high school at Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles (now Harvard-Westlake School) on a scholarship, where she played tennis. 

In addition to being interested in science she was a nationally ranked tennis player.Sally started playing tennis at age 10, and became an excellent tennis player. She won a tennis scholarship to Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles. After graduation in 1968 she attended Swarthmore College, but dropped out to pursue a career in professional tennis. After three months of hard practice, Sally decided she was not good enough to become a successful pro. She quit tennis and enrolled at Stanford University.

She ireceived her bachelor's degrees (in English and physics) from Stanford University near Palo Alto, California. She then received a master's degree and a Ph.D. in physics at the same institution, while doing research in astrophysics and free-electron laser physics.

NASA Career

At 27, with B.A., B.S., and masters' degrees, she was a Ph.D. candidate looking for postdoctoral work in astrophysics when she read about NASA's call for astronauts in the Stanford University paper.  Ride was one of 8,900 people to answer an advertisement in a newspaper seeking applicants for the space program.  As a result, Ride joined NASA in 1978.
 
After joining NASA in 1977 Ride underwent extensive training that included parachute jumping, water survival, gravity and weightlessness training, radio communications and navigation. She enjoyed flight training so much that flying became a favorite hobby.

During her career Sally was the Capsule Communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights (STS-2 and STS-3) and helped develop the Space Shuttle's robot arm. On June 18, 1983 she became the first American woman in space as a crewmember on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7. On STS-7, the 5-person crew deployed two communications satellites, conducted pharmaceutical experiments, and was the first to use the robot arm in space and the first to use the arm to retrieve a satellite. Her second space flight was in 1984, also on board the Challenger. She has cumulatively spent more than 343 hours in space. Ride was 8 months into training for her third flight at the time of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident. She was named to the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, and headed its Subcommitee on Operations. After the investigation, Ride was assigned to NASA headquarters in Washington, DC. There she led NASA's first strategic planning effort, authoring a report entitled "Leadership and America's Future in Space", and founded NASA's Office of Exploration. She was the first woman astronaut in command for NASA.