Sally Ride: Farewell to an American original (pictures)
Sally Ride broke the highest glass ceiling in the world on June 18, 1983, when she became the first American woman in space.
Ride died today after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, according to her organization, Sally Ride Science. She was 61.
Pictured here, from left to right are Shannon W. Lucid, Margaret Rhea Seddon, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Judith A. Resnik, Anna L. Fisher, and Ride.
Click on for more photos of her storied career.
"On launch day, there was so much excitement and so much happening around us. In the crew quarters. Even on the way to the launch pad. Going up the launch pad, looking up and seeing this huge, you know, rocket that kind of sounds like an animal. You can kind of hear the gurgling, and the hissing. It sounds like it's alive.
"I spent an enormous amount of effort just trying to stay focused. I tried to block out pretty much everything that was going on around me and just put one foot in front of the other. Because it would have been way too easy to just be lost in the moment. I didn't really think about it that much at the time. Because i just wanted to get the opportunity to do that. But, I've -- I came to appreciate what an honor it was to be selected to be the first woman to get a chance to go into space."