Sally Ride, first American woman in space, dies at 61
Sally Ride, who became the first American woman to fly in space when she rode in the space shuttle Challenger in 1983, has died. She was 61.
Ride died Monday at her home in La Jolla after battling pancreatic cancer, said her mother, Joyce Ride of Claremont.
Besides serving as an astronaut, Ride was a NASA advisor who helped study the Challenger and Columbia disasters. She also taught at UC San Diego and began a website, sallyridescience.com.
A Los Angeles native, Ride was a Stanford University graduate. She was one of 35 candidates pulled from a pool of 8,000 applicants chosen to be among the next astronauts in the late 1970s.
More later at latimes.com.
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