太空第一女性——莎麗.賴德

I have been a bit of a risk taker all my life.

——Sally Ride

我一輩子都有那么點兒冒險家精神。

——莎麗·賴德

Sally Ride was born in Los Angeles， California， and grew up in the suburban community of Encino in the San Fernando Valley. In addition to being an excellent student with a strong interest in science， she was a talented athlete. At age 10， she began playing tennis， a sport at which she particularly excelled. She became a nationally ranked junior tennis player and attended Westlake School for Girls on a tennis scholarship.

After graduation， she enrolled at Swarthmore University in Pennsylvania but soon doubted her choice， wondering if she was missing the opportunity for a professional tennis career. Determined to find out， she left Swarthmore after her first year to see how far her tennis game would take her. After three months of intense training， she concluded that she would not have a professional athletic1 career and enrolled at Stanford University in Palo Alto， California. She graduated with bachelor's degrees in both English and physics， and remained at Stanford to earn a master's and a Ph. D. in physics. As a graduate student， she carried out research in astrophysics2 and free-electron laser physics.

From childhood， Sally Ride had been fascinated with space exploration， but throughout the Mercury， Gemini and Apollo space flight programs， the ranks of the astronaut corps had been closed to women. From its inception3， the National Aeronautics and Space Administration， NASA， had recruited its astronauts from the ranks of military test pilots. This changed in 1978， when NASA set out to recruit more scientists， including women， for the new Space Shuttle program. At 27， Ride was completing her Ph. D. when she saw an advertisement NASA had placed in the Stanford University newspaper， seeking recruits for the astronaut corps. She saw the opportunity of a lifetime. She was one of more than 8 000 applicants for only 35 positions， but to her astonishment， she made the cut， and was one of only six women accepted for astronaut training that year.

A year of intensive preparation followed. The new astronaut's curriculum included parachute jumping， water survival， gravity and weightlessness4 training， radio communications， navigation5 and flight instruction. Sally Ride came to enjoy flying so much that it became a lifelong hobby. After her initial training period， Ride served as communications officer for the second and third Shuttle flights， relaying radio messages from Mission Control to the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia. She was also assigned to the team that developed the Shuttle's mechanical robot arm， designed to deploy and retrieve6 satellites. Two Russian women had previously orbited the earth as part of the Soviet space program， but when Sally Ride was chosen for the crew of the seventh Shuttle mission， STS-7， the story swept through the news media. Sally Ride would be the first American woman to travel in space.

Ride's mission would be the second flight for the vehicle known as the Challenger， and the first American space mission to carry a crew of five. To the accompaniment of a fanfare7 of publicity， Sally Ride boarded the Challenger on June 18， 1983，and the Challenger roared from the launch pad and into earth orbit. Over the course of the six-day mission， the crew used the robot arm in space for the first time， retrieving one satellite from orbit and releasing another. In all， the mission deployed two communications satellites for the governments of Canada and Indonesia. It also conducted the first experiment in formation flying with a satellite in orbit，and carried out a number of experiments in material and pharmaceutical research. The mission ended with a successful landing on the lakebed runway at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Sally Ride returned to space in the Challenger as a Mission Specialist on flight STS 41-G on October 5，1984. This mission's crew of seven was NASA's largest yet. The eight-day mission deployed new satellites， made observations of the earth with new large-format cameras and demonstrated a technique of refueling satellites in orbit. The Challenger landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 13，1984. Over the course of these two missions， Sally Ride had logged more than 343 hours in space.

Over the years， Sally Ride became concerned with the under-representation of women in the sciences. Since boys and girls display an equal enthusiasm for science in the early grades， Ride has focused her efforts on the promotion of science in the middle grades， when girls in particular often drift away from the study of science. She has written and co-written a number of books on space exploration for younger readers， including her memoir， To Space and Back， The Third Planet:Exploring the Earth From Space， Exploring Our Solar System， Voyager: An Adventure to the Edge of the Solar System and The Mystery of Mars.

In 1999 and 2000， Ride served as President of Space. com， a web site concerning all aspects of the space industry. She then initiated NASA's Internet-basedEarthKAMproject， enabling middleschool students to shoot and download images of the Earth from space.

As of this writing， Sally Ride is on leave from the University of California and is President and CEO of Sally Ride Science， a company she founded to create entertaining science programs and publications for students in middle school and the upper grades of elementary school. An important element of the company's mission is to support girls whose interests lie in science， math and technology. It sponsors Sally Ride Clubs for girls at schools across the country and Sally Ride Science Camps at a number of college campuses. As great as her own accomplishments in space exploration and astrophysics have been， Sally Ride's most enduring legacy may lie in the cumulative achievement of subsequent generations of young scientists， male and female， that she has fostered and inspired.

莎麗·賴德生于加州洛杉磯，在圣菲南多山谷的恩辛諾近郊社區(qū)中長大。作為一個優(yōu)秀的學(xué)生，除了對科學(xué)有強烈興趣以外，她還是個有天賦的運動員。在10歲她就開始打網(wǎng)球——這是她尤其擅長的運動。她成為進(jìn)入全國排名的少年球手，還獲得網(wǎng)球獎學(xué)金，進(jìn)入維斯特萊女子學(xué)校學(xué)習(xí)。

畢業(yè)后，她入讀賓夕法尼亞州斯瓦摩爾大學(xué)，但很快對自己的選擇產(chǎn)生懷疑，忖度著自己是不是錯失了成為專業(yè)網(wǎng)球員的機會。她下定決心要試一試，在大學(xué)第一年后就退學(xué)了，看看自己在網(wǎng)球?qū)I(yè)上能走多遠(yuǎn)。在經(jīng)過三個月高強度訓(xùn)練后，她確定職業(yè)運動員生涯不適合自己，轉(zhuǎn)而進(jìn)入了加州保羅阿爾圖的斯坦福大學(xué)。她以英語和物理雙學(xué)位畢業(yè)，并繼續(xù)在斯坦福攻讀物理學(xué)的碩士和博士。在研究所期間，她從事太空物理和自由電子激光物理方面的研究。

從童年時代起，莎麗·賴德就對探索太空非常著迷，但從水星號、雙子星號到阿波羅號太空船項目，太空人這項任務(wù)都沒有對女性開放。從計劃的開始，國家航空與空間管理局(NASA)就在經(jīng)過軍隊測試的飛行員中挑選太空人。到了1978年，這方面有所改變，當(dāng)局開始招募更多的科學(xué)家——包括女性——從事新的太空穿梭機計劃。當(dāng)莎麗·賴德看到NASA招募太空人的廣告被放在斯坦福的報紙上時，27歲的她正在完成博士學(xué)位。她覺得終于遇到了終生難得的機遇。她成了競爭35個職位的8000個申請者中的一份子。然而令她意外的是，自己竟然脫穎而出，成了接受航天訓(xùn)練的6個女性之一。

隨之而來的是為期一年的高強度預(yù)備訓(xùn)練。新太空人的受訓(xùn)項目包括跳傘，水下生存，重力與失重訓(xùn)練，無線電通訊，航空術(shù)和飛行技巧。莎麗·賴德太享受飛行的樂趣了，以至這成了她的終生樂趣。在最初的訓(xùn)練期之后，莎麗·賴德負(fù)責(zé)第二和第三穿梭機之間的通訊，從總控制處傳送無線電信息給哥倫比亞太空穿梭機的航天員。她還被分配到另一個小組，負(fù)責(zé)研制穿梭機部署和回收衛(wèi)星的機械臂。有兩位俄羅斯女性，之前已經(jīng)在蘇聯(lián)的太空計劃中環(huán)繞地球一圈了，然而當(dāng)莎麗·賴德獲選參加第7次穿梭任務(wù)STS—7時，這條新聞還是受到媒體熱烈關(guān)注。莎麗將會成為第一個進(jìn)入太空的美國女性。

莎麗·賴德的任務(wù)是從事名為挑戰(zhàn)者號的飛行器的第二次飛行。這是第一個載有5個太空人的美國飛行器。伴隨著大眾的歡呼喝彩聲，莎麗·賴德于1983年6月18日登上了挑戰(zhàn)者號。飛行器呼嘯著從發(fā)射塔上升起，進(jìn)入地球軌道。在長達(dá)6天的航程中，航天員第一次在太空中使用機械臂，從地球軌道中收回一個衛(wèi)星，并放出另一個。這次任務(wù)總共為加拿大和印度尼西亞政府投放了兩個通訊衛(wèi)星。它還以軌道中的衛(wèi)星，進(jìn)行了第一個飛行試驗，以及好幾個物質(zhì)和醫(yī)藥的實驗。任務(wù)以飛行器在加州愛德華茲空軍基地成功的著陸告終。

莎麗·賴德以專家的身份，乘坐挑戰(zhàn)者號于1984年10月5日在STS41—C飛行中再次進(jìn)入太空。這次任務(wù)有7個航天員，是歷來最大規(guī)模的。為期8天的任務(wù)投放了新的衛(wèi)星，用新的高倍數(shù)攝影機對地球進(jìn)行了觀測，同時展示了為在軌道中的衛(wèi)星加油的技術(shù)。挑戰(zhàn)者號于1984年10月13日安全著陸于佛羅里達(dá)州的肯尼迪太空中心。兩次航天任務(wù)的全過程中，莎麗·賴德在太空工作累計達(dá)343個小時。

多年來，莎麗·賴德越來越關(guān)注女性在科學(xué)研究領(lǐng)域的不平等問題。由于低年級時，男孩和女孩對科學(xué)抱有同樣的熱情，賴德集中精力促進(jìn)中年級女生學(xué)習(xí)科學(xué)，因為這期間女生尤其明顯地開始遠(yuǎn)離科學(xué)研究。她已經(jīng)獨立完成并與人合作，為年輕人寫了好幾本太空探索的書，包括她的回憶錄《去太空和歸來》、《第三個星球：從太空探索地球》、《探索我們的太陽系》、《航行：太陽系邊緣的探險》和《火星的奧秘》。

從1999年至2000年，莎麗·賴德?lián)蝧pace．com的總裁，這是一個關(guān)注太空工業(yè)所有領(lǐng)域的網(wǎng)站。之后她發(fā)起了NASA的網(wǎng)絡(luò)計劃“EarthKAM”，使中學(xué)生能從太空的角度拍攝并下載地球影像。

在筆者寫作本文時，莎麗·賴德正要離開加州大學(xué)。她現(xiàn)在是莎麗·賴德科學(xué)公司的總裁和首席執(zhí)行官。她創(chuàng)立這間公司，為中學(xué)和小學(xué)高年級學(xué)生制作帶有娛樂性的科學(xué)節(jié)目與出版物。公司的其中一個重要的宗旨，是支持對科學(xué)、數(shù)學(xué)和技術(shù)有興趣的女孩子。它贊助為全國各地女孩設(shè)立的“莎麗·賴德俱樂部’，以及設(shè)在好幾個學(xué)院校園里的“莎麗·賴德科學(xué)營”。雖然莎麗·賴德自己在空間探索與天體物理方面的成就已經(jīng)很大了，但她最持久的遺產(chǎn)，應(yīng)該是在后代年輕科學(xué)家不斷積累的成就上，因為這些科學(xué)家，不論男女，都是在她的培養(yǎng)和感召下成長的。

注釋：

①athletic：adj. 運動員的，運動的

②astrophysics：n. 天體物理學(xué)

③inception：n. 開始，開端

④weightlessness：n．無重狀態(tài)

⑤navieation：n．航行；航海

⑥r(nóng)etrieve：v．尋回，找回

⑦fanfare：n．號角，短曲