During a press conference preceding her first journey into space, Sally Ride was famously asked, “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?” She replied levelly, “How come nobody ever asks Rick those questions?” highlighting the very entrenched gender stereotypes that she was pushing through to become the first American woman in space.I remember learning about Sally Ride in elementary school. I remember looking at her picture in my textbook in awe: “The first American woman in space.” She inspired me because she was a strong, smart woman who had pursued a career in the sciences and had gone on to become a trailblazer in the space program.After her tenure at NASA, Ride went on to work for Stanford, to write five books on space for children, and to start her own private company, Sally Ride Science, to encourage young people, particularly young women, to pursue STEM sciences.Read the rest over at Motherboard.