Pioneering NASA Astronaut Sally Ride Dies At Age 61
Colleen Taylor is based in San Francisco where she is a reporter for TechCrunch TV. Previously she worked for GigaOM, where she reported on startups and Silicon Valley. Earlier, Colleen reported for Mergermarket, an online newswire and subsidiary of the Financial Times focused on M&A. Before that, she was a contributing editor for Electronic News, the semiconductor industry trade newsletter. Colleen... ? Learn More Sally Kristen Ride, Ph.D., an astronaut and physicist who in 1983 at the age of 32 became the first American woman (and at that time, the youngest person ever) to enter space, died today at age 61. The cause was pancreatic cancer, a disease which she had battled for the past 17 months, according to a statement on her official website. Ride accomplished a great deal in her relatively short life. Born on May 26, 1951 in Los Angeles, Ride has credited her parents with encouraging her interest in science from an early age — according to her official bio, Sally “grew up pla...