Statue of Sally Ride, first American woman in space, to be unveiled at Cradle of Aviation
A statue of the first American woman in space will soon stand near where the first spacecraft to land on the moon was built, just as NASA is working towards the first woman landing. moon.
The Cradle Aviation Museum in Garden City, New York will host a monument to Sally Ride, the NASA astronaut who made history aboard the space shuttle in 1983. The statue of the late astronaut will was announced in a public ceremony on June 17, just a day after Ride’s 39th anniversary.
“We are honored to have this sculpture – depicting the first American woman in space – in the museum’s permanent collection,” Andy Parton, Cradle of Aviation president, said in a statement. declare.
The gold and bronze statue, which will be erected in the new “Sally Ride Circle” outside the museum’s entrance, will greet visitors as they arrive to learn more about the area’s history of aeronautics and space travel Long Island area. In addition to displaying more than 70 aircraft, Cradle of Aviation also displays the LM-13, a disused Apollo lunar module, built at the nearby Grumman Aircraft Engineering facility in Bethpage, New York .
Sally Ride Biography: The First American Woman in Space
Titled “The First American Woman in Space,” the monument depicts Ride in a space shuttle one-piece flight suit and flight jacket. Shown as she steps forward, Ride’s right arm reaches out as she raises her mock-up of the space shuttle into the sky.
The wings and longitudinal stabilizers (tails) of the shuttle fleet were also built by Grumman of Bethpage.
Born in Los Angeles, Ride was a nationally ranked young tennis player and physicist before joining NASA’s astronaut crew in 1978. One of the first six US women to receive pilot training. spacecraft, Ride helped deploy two satellites on STS-7, the first of her two missions.
It then launched onto STS-41G to conduct Earth observations and demonstrate potential satellite refueling techniques. It was the first mission to fly two women.
After leaving NASA, Ride worked as a professor of physics and, with her partner Tam O’Shaughnessy, co-founded Sally Ride Science to promote young women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Ride’s closest connection, geographically at least, to Cradle of Aviation was a year she served as the founding president of Space.com, leading the New York City-based company and its growth efforts. develop educational programs for students.
Ride died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 in 2012.
Steven Barber, a documentary filmmaker with the idea of the statue and organizer of the statue, said: “I have great hopes that once the Sally Ride is announced, it will open up other monuments for those American women are high achievers in STEM. create and arrange.
The statue is a gift to the Cradle of Aviation from the Matson Family Foundation, Peter Diamandis, on behalf of the XPRIZE Foundation, and Maria Shriver. It was created by Colorado-based sculptors and brothers George and Mark Lundeen, working with fellow artist Joey Bainer.
The Ride statue is the fourth astronaut tribute created by the Lundeen brothers and the third made of Barber. They previously carved a statue of Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert for the National Statuary Hall in the United States, a monument to Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins located at the Kennedy Space Center of NASA in Florida and statues of Apollo 13 crew James Lovell, Fred Haise and Swigert for the Houston Space Center.
Copies of the Swigert and Apollo 11 statues are located at Denver International Airport in Colorado and Appleton International Airport in Wisconsin, respectively.
The Cradle Aviation Museum is running an essay competition for middle and high school students, focusing on Ride’s life and accomplishments, as well as her contributions to the space break. The winner will inaugurate the monument during the ceremony on June 17.
The museum is also currently taking orders for carved bricks to line the new Sally Ride Circle, which surrounds the statue. The bricks are available for donations of $125 or more, can be engraved with the name of a family or loved one, or depict a business or organization. Proceeds from these bricks will help support Cradle of Aviation conservation efforts and educational programs.
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https://www.space.com/astronaut-sally-ride-statue-cradle-aviation Statue of Sally Ride, first American woman in space, to be unveiled at Cradle of Aviation
