Patch, STS-51D, Discovery, Sally Ride

This STS 51-D patch was owned by Dr. Sally K. Ride. STS 51-D, which launched in April 1985, was the sixteenth flight of NASA's Space Shuttle Program. The design of the patch was reused from the canceled misison of STS-41F, with two added crew members included on a tab along the bottom. STS 51-D was the first flight for female astronaut, M. Rhea Seddon. Two months later, Shannon Lucid flew aboard 51-G, and all six women chosen as astronaut candidates in 1978 had flown. Ride commemorated their accomplishments with an autographed montage, also in the Museum's collection.Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she flew aboard STS-7 in 1983. Her second and last space mission was STS-41G in 1984. A physicist with a Ph.D., she joined the astronaut corps in 1978 as a part of the first class of astronauts recruited specifically for the Space Shuttle Program. Viewed as a leader in the NASA community, she served on the Rogers Commission after the Challenger disaster in 1986 as well as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) in 2003. She also led the task force that produced a visionary strategic planning report in 1987 titled, “NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space,” but known popularly as the Ride Report.After she retired from NASA in 1987, Dr. Ride taught first at Stanford and later at the University of California, San Diego. Until her death in 2012, she was president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company that promoted science education.Dr. Ride’s partner, Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy, donated the patch to the Museum in 2013.