Sally Ride
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Pioneering astronaut Sally Ride will appear on a limited-run US quarter
The US Mint has revealed plans for a special quarter featuring Sally Ride, the country's first woman astronaut.
A lawsuit almost stalled NASA's Cassini mission
Capt. Scott Kelly wasn't kidding when he famously quipped that "space is hard." Even getting to the launch pad can prove to be a daunting challenge. Take the Cassini mission to study Saturn, for example. Despite an investment of $3.4 billion and nearly a decade of development, Cassini wound up being very nearly scuttled at the last minute by protesters who thought they knew better than a federal agency that has put multiple men on the moon. Geez guys, it was just 73 pounds of plutonium riding aboard that Saturn orbiter -- it wouldn't have caused that much damage had something gone horribly wrong at launch.
Sally Ride, first American woman in space, dies at 61 (updated)
It's a sad day for space travel. Sally Ride, the first American woman to ever travel to space, has died at the age of 61 after a bout with pancreatic cancer. She's best known for breaking NASA's gender barrier by flying on Space Shuttle Challenger on June 18th, 1983, but she spent much more of her time guiding our future in space while here on Earth -- she founded NASA's Office of Exploration and directed its early strategy, and she later went on to lead the California Space Institute as well as teach physics at the University of California in San Diego. Her final decade saw her establish Sally Ride Science to encourage students wanting to follow in her footsteps, especially girls. Ride blazed one of the brighter trails in technology, and she'll be missed. Update: Ride is survived by her same-sex partner of 27 years, Dr. Tam O'Shaughnessy. [Image credit: National Archives]
