Goodbye Mustang Sally
We’re pretty big fans of space exploration here at PTC, so I decided to push an opening into the current publishing schedule to have the ‘Twins say something about Astronaut Sally Ride’s untimely death.
Spike’s comment about Sally being the first female in space that matters, is not said to diminish the contributions of the two Soviet women who went before her. It’s a mix of uncharacteristic patriotism, and, to a lesser extent, a quip about the “Space Race.”
Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first human woman in space, and also the first civilian. But she was selected for her flight from a pool of women, for a program to specifically send and experiment upon women into space.
Professor Doctor Ride, on the other hand, qualified for the U.S. space program on her own merits (despite institutionalized discrimination). Not so much a tribute to rising equality in the U. S., as to her.