Question 1

True or false: Sally Ride was rejected by NASA on her first application to the astronaut program.

Accepted Answer

False. She was selected in 1978 as part of NASA's first class to include women, after applying and being accepted on her first try.

Question 2

True or false: Sally Ride served as a mission specialist on the Challenger space shuttle in 1983.

Accepted Answer

True. She flew on STS-7 in June 1983, becoming the third woman in space overall and the first American woman.

Question 3

True or false: Sally Ride was the first American woman to walk in space during a 1984 shuttle mission.

Accepted Answer

False. That was Kathryn D. Sullivan; Ride never performed a spacewalk. She flew on two shuttle missions but stayed inside the orbiter.

Question 4

True or false: Sally Ride was a trained physicist and also played professional tennis before joining NASA.

Accepted Answer

False. She was a physicist, but she never played professional tennis—though she was a nationally ranked junior tennis player.

Question 5

True or false: After leaving NASA, Sally Ride founded a company that designed educational space toys for children.

Accepted Answer

False. She co-founded Sally Ride Science, a nonprofit that created science programs and books for students, not toys.

Question 6

True or false: Sally Ride was the only person to serve on both the Rogers Commission and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

Accepted Answer

True. She investigated both the Challenger (1986) and Columbia (2003) shuttle disasters, a unique role.

Question 7

True or false: Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, but she was also the first known LGBTQ+ astronaut.

Accepted Answer

True. Ride's partner Tam O'Shaughnessy was revealed after her death; Ride was the first openly LGBTQ+ astronaut, though not publicly during her career.

Question 8

True or false: Sally Ride earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Stanford University before becoming an astronaut.

Accepted Answer

True. She earned a Ph.D. in physics (not astrophysics) from Stanford in 1978, focusing on X-ray astronomy and free-electron lasers.

Sally Ride Trivia Questions