Portrait of Sally Ride (seated, left) and the first five other female NASA astronauts selected as part of the astronaut class of 1978. In the back row from left to right are: Kathryn Sullivan, Shannon W. Lucid, Anna L. Fischer and Judith Resnik. Seated on the bottom are Sally K. Ride (left) and M. Rhea Sneddon (right). Sally Ride was the first American woman in space and the third woman in space overall. She was a mission specialist on STS-7 aboard Challenger in 1983 and flew again onto Challenger in 1984 as part of the STS 41-G mission.