The Nation - News from Sept. 27, 1987

Saturday was the last day on the job for America’s first woman in space, astronaut Sally K. Ride, 36, who announced last May that she was leaving the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to join an arms control think tank at Stanford University. Ride’s first spaceflight was aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983. Her departure was not a surprise to many NASA insiders, especially after her participation in the Rogers commission investigation of the Challenger explosion and her open criticism of space shuttle safety on a television news program during the investigation.