Here’s an excellent documentary about American astronaut Dr. Sally Ride (1951-2012). This launched in June 2025, perfectly timed given the shifting political values of Western nations (notably the US).
Dr. Ride was the first American woman in space, a highly accomplished astrophysicist, and she was gay.
Her career accomplishments are astonishing and she’s an incredible role model. Sally explores all of that, the love life she kept secret, and her lasting legacy.
Trailblazing EVERYTHING in the Epic Documentary Sally
Directed by Cristina Costantini, the documentary begins in earnest by exploring Ride’s early life.
She was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 26th 1951. Super bloody smart, she went to the University of California and completed English Literature and quantum mechanics degrees (being the only woman to major in physics that year).
In January 1977, she applied to NASA’s Astronaut Group 8 program as one of 8,000 candidates. This was narrowed down to 208 finalists, most of whom were men. 35 were selected by NASA (six being women).
Of those 35, the challenge then became who got to go up in a space shuttle.
The First American Woman in Space
It soon became clear two women stood out. Ride was in direct competition with the very talented Judith Resnik, a stunningly intelligent and accomplished electric engineer.
As with Ride, she was also very attractive and this leads to a necessary element of Sally—the sexism of the time. These women were genuinely breaking down some serious barriers in everything they were doing.
This is Resnik interviewed in April 1981.
There was genuine concern from men over whether women would be able to emotionally handle the experience, a lingering belief that had led to NASA becoming a male-dominated environment.
For example, interviewed in Sally is Mike Mullane. He trained with them as part of the NASA program and had previously fought in the Vietnam war. He admits now he’d held sexist views against Ride and Resnik, although is embarrassed about this now and is a pro-feminist at 79 (and good on him).
Resnik eventually lost out to the fiercely competitive Ride, but would go into space from 1984 onward. Unfortunately, she was later one of the astronauts killed in the 1986 Challenger Disaster. She was 36.
As for Ride, her iconic first trip took place on June 18th, 1983.
As she was to be the first American woman in space, she had to endure all manner of weird press conference enquiries and other interviews.
But it didn’t end there, as NASA’s engineers (all men) had to think of what to include as part of Ride’s requirements in space.
Male astronauts received the likes of shaving equipment etc. For their first female astronaut, NASA created a specially designed… makeup kit! That and 100 tampons.
This is NASA. An organisation we associate with genius, who’d been to the Moon and back, there making an idiotic decision like that.
Hiding Her Personal Life
The trip to space made Sally Ride very famous indeed. But she felt the need to keep her private life secret. Much of Sally includes insights and revelations from Tam O’Shaughnessy, her life partner of 27 years. This was only revealed 10 days before Ride’s death in July 2012.
You can see why she kept it a secret, particularly during the 1980s, as the homophobic backlash of the early ’80s from right-wingers was extreme. In the documentary, there are members of the public interviewed by news channels saying it’s an abomination against God etc.
One young man is seen laughingly stating gay men should be shot (he is, literally, laughing in an offhand casual manner as he says it).
With this homophobic public attitude, Ride decided to hide her private life for fear it would ruin her career. Only 10 days before she died did she publicly acknowledge it. Forced to hide it for fear of repercussions as, if she’d been out and proud, she likely never would have made it into space due to the oppressive attitudes of the time.
Unfortunately, the documentary arrives at a time when Trump has cancelled all diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) programs across America. Sally is a reminder to fight back against that world of bizarre Conservative anachronisms, bigotry, and repression.
Director Cristina Costantini spoke to The Guardian in June 2025. In how Sally Ride made history and paid the price she said:
“We made this movie not thinking it was particularly controversial. We had no idea it would be this relevant.
The film is really two stories interwoven. It’s the public and the private Sally. The public Sally is so well-documented that it’s a problem. We had to bring in 5,000 reels from the NASA archive and sort through and sound sync all of them. That was a monumental task.
And then the other task is the private story, maybe the more interesting story, which has no documentation at all. There are only five really good pictures of [Sally and her partner, Tam] together that we had. You can’t build a love story out of showing people the same five pictures over and over again. For that we had to kind of invent our own cinematic romantic language.”
All of which makes this a rather enthralling documentary. It has everything—laughs, cries, and a life-affirming energy. Because Sally Ride kicked ass and the world was a hell of a lot better for it.
