Ride's mission: Earth
Closer scrutiny showed smog choking the Los Angeles Basin. Raw sewage and industrial waste flowed into the Mediterranean Sea. Rivers in Madagascar ran blood red, the result of catastrophic erosion triggered by 50 years of deforestation.
And then, just above the horizon was a thin, royal blue line following the curvature of the Earth.
"That pencil-thin line is the Earth's atmosphere, and the view just drives home how fragile the atmosphere is," said Ride, now 57 and the president and chief executive officer of Sally Ride Science, a company that promotes science education.
"And we really depend on that atmosphere. I mean, without the atmosphere, Earth would not be the same. We would not be here," she said. "So the fragility of the atmosphere, the fragility of the Earth, and the obvious effect we are having on the planet kind of stuck with me."
Now convinced that climate change is the biggest challenge people face in the 21st century, Ride is on a mission to keep middle school students, particularly girls, interested in science.
"And the best way to do that is to make science real for them, and relevant and important to their world," Ride said. "In fact, meeting the challenge of climate change could capture the interest and imagination of this generation the way that meeting the challenge of Sputnik and the moon race did mine."
Trouble is, she said, the topic is so hot, so new, that even the basic science behind climate change has yet to make its way into textbooks and classrooms.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of her historic flight, Ride is teaming with NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Science Teachers Association, the National Environmental Education Foundation and Northrup Grumman to host a climate change conference for teachers next month.
The two-day conference will begin July 23 at the NOAA Science Center in Silver Spring, Md.
Teachers attending will explore the latest findings, dig in to hands-on science and customized content for classrooms.
They'll also meet experts that include a key member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.
"What we're doing with the 25th anniversary is not only trying to focus on climate change and the issue of climate change, but we're trying to make teachers more aware of the issues and how they can bring the science of climate change into their classrooms," Ride said.
"The kids who are growing up today are very aware of the challenge, but they don't have a lot of information about the science," she said. "So we're trying to bring this information to the teachers, bring materials to the teachers so that they can bring it into the classroom."
Selected as an astronaut in 1978, Ride blasted off on her historic first flight 25 years ago Wednesday -- June 18, 1983. She launched again on NASA's 13th shuttle flight in October 1984, an eight-day Earth science mission -- one in which her interest in climate change intensified.
"So I kind of came out of my flight experience with a much greater appreciation for Earth's environment and our impact on it. And that evolved rather quickly actually into an interest and concern about climate change and global warming," she said.
"Understanding our effect on Earth's climate and then mitigating our effect on Earth's climate is really the greatest challenge in front of us today, and in front of the next generation. I mean, we've kind of laid this at the feet of the next generation and I think that it's critically important," she said.
"I'm an optimist by nature, so I really believe there are solutions to this problem. But it's something we have to get very serious about very quickly, and start focusing some of the scientific and engineering brains we have in this country on solving the problem."
floridatoday
com