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June 18, 2013

Statement on the Introduction of the Sally K. Ride Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, 30 years ago today, Sally Ride became the first American woman to travel into space.  For that, she will be forever enshrined in history.  But as impressive as that feat was, she made many other contributions to our country that were just as important.  In recognition of all of her achievements, today I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the Sally K. Ride Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2013, which was introduced by my colleague Representative Scott Peters.

Sally Ride was a newly minted Ph.D. physicist when she joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1978.  During her service in the astronaut corps, she participated in two Space Shuttle missions:  STS-7 in 1983 and STS-41G in 1984.  While training for her third mission, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred, which ended her service as an astronaut.  In the aftermath of the disaster, Dr. Ride was selected to serve on the Presidential commission investigating the accident.  She would later go on to serve as a member of the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board, becoming the only person to serve on both Space Shuttle accident investigation boards.

After her service at NASA, Dr. Ride became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, as well as the Director of the California Space Institute.  In addition to her teaching at UC San Diego, Dr. Ride was heavily involved with programs to increase science, technology, and mathematics (STEM) educational achievement in young women.  To this end, in 2001 she co-founded a company that creates entertaining science programs for elementary and middle school students.  Dr. Ride was also a prolific writer of children’s books.

Sadly, in July of last year, Dr. Ride passed away after a battle with cancer.

During her life, Sally Ride was honored and recognized many times.  However, she was never awarded a Congressional Gold Medal.  I think we can all agree that this was an unfortunate oversight on the part of Congress, and we should expeditiously move forward with this legislation to posthumously recognize Dr. Ride’s achievements.

I hope that as we work to pay tribute to this extraordinary woman, we also work to honor the legacy of her achievements.  We can best honor that legacy by ensuring a strong and healthy space program, by rededicating our scientific and educational agencies to the cause of improving STEM education, and by striving to ensure that all young people, regardless of race or sex or creed, believe that they too can reach for the stars.