A statue of the first American woman to fly into space will soon be near the site of the first lunar landing.
Sally Ride made history when she flew on the space shuttle in 1983, and a monument to her will be located at the Cradle of Aviation Museum. The statue of the late astronauts will be unveiled on June 17th, just one day before the 39th anniversary of Ride's first launch.
The sculpture depicting the first American woman in space is in the permanent collection of the museum.
Visitors to the museum will be welcomed by the statue which will be outside the entrance to theSally Ride Circle. In addition to displaying more than 70 aircraft, the Cradle of Aviation also exhibits an unused Apollo lunar module which was built at the nearby Grumman Aircraft Engineering facility in Bethpage, New York.
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Sally Ride is the first American woman in space.
The monument depicts Ride in her space shuttle one-piece flight suit and flight jacket. As she holds up a model of the space shuttle, Ride extended her right arm and stepped forward.
The shuttle fleet's wings and vertical stabilizers were built by Grumman in Bethpage.
Before joining NASA, Ride was a nationally ranked youth tennis player and physicist. One of the first six women to train for a spaceflight, Ride helped to deploy two satellites on the first mission.
She launched on the shuttle to conduct Earth observations and demonstrate satellite refueling techniques. The mission was the first to fly two women.
Sally Ride Science was co-founded by Ride and her life partner Tam O'Shaughnessy to encourage young women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
She was the founding president of Space.com, a New York City-based company that develops educational programming for students.
Ride died of cancer at the age of 61.
Steven Barber, a documentary filmmaker whose idea it was to erect the statue and who organized its creation and placement, hopes Sally Ride will open the door to other monuments for high-achieving American women.
The XPRIZE Foundation and Maria Shriver gave the statue to the Cradle of Aviation. It was created by Colorado-based sculptors and brothers George and Mark Lundeen.
The Ride statue was created by the Lundeen brothers and is the third one. The National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol has statues of the Apollo 13 crew, as well as a monument to Apollo 11 astronauts NeilArmstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.
There are duplicate statues of Swigert and Apollo 11 at Denver International Airport in Colorado and Appleton International Airport in Wisconsin.
The Cradle of Aviation Museum is holding an essay contest for middle and high school students that will focus on Ride's life and achievements, as well as her contributions to space exploration. The monument will be unveiled during the June 17 ceremony.
The Sally Ride Circle is a line of engraved bricks surrounding the statue. The bricks are available for a donation of $125 or more and can be engraved with the name of a family or a business. The funds raised from the bricks will support the preservation efforts of the Cradle of Aviation.
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