“I did not come to NASA to make history.” ~Dr. Sally Ride
Dr. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, the third woman ever to fly to space, and the first LGBTQ+ individual featured on a U.S. coin. She spent her entire life shattering the gender barriers in science and worked hard to encourage young women to pursue STEM-based careers.
However, despite her trailblazing career, Dr. Ride was a private, humble person who didn't particularly enjoy the attention she received for her work. But she also recognized the importance of young girls seeing a woman excelling in science, so she tried her best to embrace all the attention. When her first mission was announced, she received and refused over 500 requests for an individual interview. It was clear that declining those interviews had been the right call when, during the official NASA press conference with all the mission astronauts, she was only asked questions like, "How will flying to space affect your ability to have children?"
Dr. Ride didn't always want to be an astronaut. In her early college days, while earning her multiple physics degrees, she was actually pursuing a career as a professional tennis player. When she decided to give up on pro-tennis, she shifted her focus to her studies, earning a PhD. She still wasn't 100% sure what she wanted to do, and her decision to become an astronaut was spur-of-the-moment. She decided to apply when she saw that NASA was recruiting for the next set of shuttle missions and was accepting female applicants for the first time. She was one of six women chosen for astronaut training and worked as a ground-based capsule communicator for the second and third shuttle flights.
One of Dr. Ride's projects at NASA was to help develop the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (RMS), also known as the robotic arm. Her work on this project led her to be chosen as the first American woman to fly to space as part of the STS-7 mission. She was the mission specialist in charge of operating the robotic arm. She took on the same role in her second mission, STS-41-G. She was supposed to fly on a third mission, but that was canceled after the Challenger tragedy. She was appointed to the presidential commission investigating the disaster and was the only astronaut or current NASA employee on the commission. She was the one who found some of the key information that helped identify the cause of the explosion.
During her time at NASA, Dr. Ride led multiple public outreach efforts and served on numerous advisory committees. After leaving NASA, she co-founded Sally Ride Science, an organization that focused on entertaining science programs for middle schoolers with a particular focus on girls. She received multiple awards for her work, including an induction to the National Women's Hall of Fame, the Astronaut Hall of Fame, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2018, she was honored with her own postage stamp, which would have been particularly exciting for her as an avid stamp collector.
The overall design of this quarter was inspired by Dr. Ride’s famous quote, "When I wasn't working, I was usually at a window, looking down at Earth." She cherished her time in space, and this design represents that. Her portrait is shown looking out a shuttle window at the Earth, a look of awe on her face. The placement of the motto "E Pluribus Unum" was very purposeful. The Latin phrase means "out of many, one," and placing this phrase over the Earth and America represents that, out of the many women in the U.S., she was the one chosen to be first into space.
The small details on this coin were also all intentional choices. The patch on her spacesuit was a real part of the design from the patch of her first mission. It features one female and four male symbols to represent the crew. You can also see that her nametag says "Sally" instead of "Dr. Ride." Titles were not something Dr. Ride cared about, and she wanted her spacesuit to reflect that. During the April 20, 2021, Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) meeting, there was some debate as to whether or not they should include her Dr. title with her name on the coin. Some argued that this coin was honoring her as the first American woman in space, not her PhD in physics. However, they ultimately agreed that the coin honored her and all her accomplishments, so they included the title she rightfully earned with the science degree that started her career.