American physicist and astronaut Sally Ride was BOTD in 1951. Born in Los Angeles, California to a middle-class family, she showed early skill as a tennis player, winning a scholarship to study at an exclusive private school. She won another scholarship to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she became a college tennis champion, leaving after her first year to pursue a professional tennis career. Returning to California, she studied quantum physics at the University of California Los Angeles, transferring to Stanford University where she completed a doctorate in astrophysics. In 1977, she applied to NASA to join an astronaut entry programme. Selected in 1978, she undertook intensive training for a year. In 1982, she was selected as the first female astronaut to join a NASA space mission. She joined the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983, successfully undertaking a six day mission. On her return to earth, she became a national celebrity, skilfully dodging sexist questions posed by journalists. She undertook a second mission on the Challenger in 1984, though a planned third mission was cancelled after the spacecraft exploded in 1986, killing all seven astronauts aboard. Ride was subsequently appointed to the presidential commission to investigate the disaster, providing key information about faulty construction that caused the explosion. She worked briefly for NASA headquarters, leaving in 1987 to take up a fellowship at Stanford in nuclear arms control. She became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, participating in a number of initiatives to encourage girls to study science, and wrote six children’s books. In 2003, she again served on a government panel to investigate the Columbia space shuttle disaster. Ride had relationships with men and women from her teens, and married astronaut Steve Hawley in 1987. They separated in 1985 when Ride formed a relationship with Tam O’Shaughnessy, an old friend from the tennis circuit. They became life partners, living together discreetly for 27 years. Ride died in 2012 after a year-long battle with cancer, aged 61. Her sexuality and relationship with O’Shaughnessy was revealed in obituaries, making her America’s first known LGBT astronaut. Amid many posthumous tributes, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and had a naval research ship, satellite and spacecraft named in her honour.