I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.

As a result Sally Ride joined NASA in 1978. Her father had been a political science professor at Santa Monica College. She was preceded by two Soviet women Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.

She founded a company Sally Ride Science in 2001. She co-authored five children's science books with her life partner of 27 years Tam O'Shaughnessy as well as another dozen or so space-related titles.