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Danh ngôn của Sally Ride (Sứ mệnh: 6)

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.
So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion - because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.
After the Challenger accident, NASA put in a lot of time to improve the safety of the space shuttle to fix the things that had gone wrong.
But even in elementary school and junior high, I was very interested in space and in the space program.
I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.
I do a lot of running and hiking, and I also collect stamps - space stamps and Olympics stamps.
Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.
It takes a few years to prepare for a space mission.
It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.
I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.
The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.
The view of Earth is spectacular.
The stars don't look bigger, but they do look brighter.
There are aspects of being the first woman in space that I'm not going to enjoy.
The women's movement had already paved the way, I think, for my coming.
The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.
For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.
For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences.
Rocket science is tough, and rockets have a way of failing.
One thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure.
I did not come to NASA to make history.
The experience of being in space didn't change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.
Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It's posing questions and coming up with a method. It's delving in.
I think it's important for little girls growing up, and young women, to have one in every walk of life. So from that point of view, I'm proud to be a role model!
Studying whether there's life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there's something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That's something that is almost part of being human, and I'm certain that will continue.
When the space shuttle's engines cut off, and you're finally in space, in orbit, weightless... I remember unstrapping from my seat, floating over to the window, and that's when I got my first view of Earth. Just a spectacular view, and a chance to see our planet as a planet.