[太空第一女性――莎丽.赖德]莎莉赖德太空漫步答案

　　I have been a bit of a risk taker all my life. 　　 ――Sally Ride 　　我一辈子都有那么点儿冒险家精神。
　　――莎丽・赖德
　　
　　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.
　　
　　莎丽・赖德生于加州洛杉矶，在圣菲南多山谷的恩辛诺近郊社区中长大。作为一个优秀的学生，除了对科学有强烈兴趣以外，她还是个有天赋的运动员。在10岁她就开始打网球――这是她尤其擅长的运动。她成为进入全国排名的少年球手，还获得网球奖学金，进入维斯特莱女子学校学习。
　　毕业后，她入读宾夕法尼亚州斯瓦摩尔大学，但很快对自己的选择产生怀疑，忖度着自己是不是错失了成为专业网球员的机会。她下定决心要试一试，在大学第一年后就退学了，看看自己在网球专业上能走多远。在经过三个月高强度训练后，她确定职业运动员生涯不适合自己，转而进入了加州保罗阿尔图的斯坦福大学。她以英语和物理双学位毕业，并继续在斯坦福攻读物理学的硕士和博士。在研究所期间，她从事太空物理和自由电子激光物理方面的研究。
　　从童年时代起，莎丽・赖德就对探索太空非常着迷，但从水星号、双子星号到阿波罗号太空船项目，太空人这项任务都没有对女性开放。从计划的开始，国家航空与空间管理局(NASA)就在经过军队测试的飞行员中挑选太空人。到了1978年，这方面有所改变，当局开始招募更多的科学家――包括女性――从事新的太空穿梭机计划。当莎丽・赖德看到NASA招募太空人的广告被放在斯坦福的报纸上时，27岁的她正在完成博士学位。她觉得终于遇到了终生难得的机遇。她成了竞争35个职位的8000个申请者中的一份子。然而令她意外的是，自己竟然脱颖而出，成了接受航天训练的6个女性之一。
　　随之而来的是为期一年的高强度预备训练。新太空人的受训项目包括跳伞，水下生存，重力与失重训练，无线电通讯，航空术和飞行技巧。莎丽・赖德太享受飞行的乐趣了，以至这成了她的终生乐趣。在最初的训练期之后，莎丽・赖德负责第二和第三穿梭机之间的通讯，从总控制处传送无线电信息给哥伦比亚太空穿梭机的航天员。她还被分配到另一个小组，负责研制穿梭机部署和回收卫星的机械臂。有两位俄罗斯女性，之前已经在苏联的太空计划中环绕地球一圈了，然而当莎丽・赖德获选参加第7次穿梭任务STS―7时，这条新闻还是受到媒体热烈关注。莎丽将会成为第一个进入太空的美国女性。
　　莎丽・赖德的任务是从事名为挑战者号的飞行器的第二次飞行。这是第一个载有5个太空人的美国飞行器。伴随着大众的欢呼喝彩声，莎丽・赖德于1983年6月18日登上了挑战者号。飞行器呼啸着从发射塔上升起，进入地球轨道。在长达6天的航程中，航天员第一次在太空中使用机械臂，从地球轨道中收回一个卫星，并放出另一个。这次任务总共为加拿大和印度尼西亚政府投放了两个通讯卫星。它还以轨道中的卫星，进行了第一个飞行试验，以及好几个物质和医药的实验。任务以飞行器在加州爱德华兹空军基地成功的着陆告终。
　　莎丽・赖德以专家的身份，乘坐挑战者号于1984年10月5日在STS41―C飞行中再次进入太空。这次任务有7个航天员，是历来最大规模的。为期8天的任务投放了新的卫星，用新的高倍数摄影机对地球进行了观测，同时展示了为在轨道中的卫星加油的技术。挑战者号于1984年10月13日安全着陆于佛罗里达州的肯尼迪太空中心。两次航天任务的全过程中，莎丽・赖德在太空工作累计达343个小时。
　　多年来，莎丽・赖德越来越关注女性在科学研究领域的不平等问题。由于低年级时，男孩和女孩对科学抱有同样的热情，赖德集中精力促进中年级女生学习科学，因为这期间女生尤其明显地开始远离科学研究。她已经独立完成并与人合作，为年轻人写了好几本太空探索的书，包括她的回忆录《去太空和归来》、《第三个星球：从太空探索地球》、《探索我们的太阳系》、《航行：太阳系边缘的探险》和《火星的奥秘》。
　　从1999年至2000年，莎丽・赖德担任space．com的总裁，这是一个关注太空工业所有领域的网站。之后她发起了NASA的网络计划“EarthKAM”，使中学生能从太空的角度拍摄并下载地球影像。
　　在笔者写作本文时，莎丽・赖德正要离开加州大学。她现在是莎丽・赖德科学公司的总裁和首席执行官。她创立这间公司，为中学和小学高年级学生制作带有娱乐性的科学节目与出版物。公司的其中一个重要的宗旨，是支持对科学、数学和技术有兴趣的女孩子。它赞助为全国各地女孩设立的“莎丽・赖德俱乐部’，以及设在好几个学院校园里的“莎丽・赖德科学营”。虽然莎丽・赖德自己在空间探索与天体物理方面的成就已经很大了，但她最持久的遗产，应该是在后代年轻科学家不断积累的成就上，因为这些科学家，不论男女，都是在她的培养和感召下成长的。
　　
　　注释：
　　①athletic：adj. 运动员的，运动的
　　②astrophysics：n. 天体物理学
　　③inception：n. 开始，开端
　　④weightlessness：n．无重状态
　　⑤navieation：n．航行；航海
　　⑥retrieve：v．寻回，找回
　　⑦fanfare：n．号角，短曲