presented. when she came back she shared her story with a world which is what you have to do when you were an astronaut. as part of a public relations thing. she most loved talking to children. she most loved the questions that children that asks first first because the pills were too embarrassed in the question eyes was how do you go to the bathroom in space? sand lake cooked up a very simple explanation. easy she said, it's just like sitting on a vacuum cleaner. [laughter] sally also talked endlessly about what she had seen from space but the most important thing she saw was what she eyes described as the thin blue line encircling our planet and that is earth's atmosphere. she said it was as if someone had taken a royal blue crayon and drawn a line around the planet and she realize from where she was sitting in space that without that thin line and she to me science sheds she would change the metaphor. as thin as the fuzz on a tennis ball or she would say is earth space suit but without that thin blue line we wouldn't have a planet and that is why we have to protect the planet we live on. much of her life was devoted after her flight to being sure that we protect planet earth and she believed in space like she believed in human spaceflight but also in robotic spaceflight. she thought first and foremost spatial be used to take your care of planet earth because without that thin blue line we would not be here in this room. we would have no treason we would have no grass in the water. i was extraordinary to her. sally made a lot of contributions that after she left nasa. she left nasa in 1987 which was a year after the challenger explosion. sally was horrified by it as was everybody. she served on the commission the only shuttle astronaut to be on the rogers commission investigating the challenger explosion made a critical contribution to the investigation. over the years she served on the commission investigating the disintegration of the spacecraft columbia when it came back to earth. she taught comics use me she did research on arms control and then she started her own compa company. she finally decided it was time to do something for other people and she and a couple of partner started something called sally ride science which is a for-profit company to encourage particularly middle school girls to study and stay committed to s.t.e.m. technology, science technology engineering math and all the rest are she loved being the first american woman in space and by the way she was not the first one. the russians beat her to it. sally was the first american woman and with all the publicity that goes with that. she likes being the first. she wanted to get girls and boys committed to science and to understand the joy and beauty of science if she had for all of her life. that's the sally ride i knew. a smart and witty pal who would stay with me in new york and during the day would go off and play dragons and then she would come home and i would find her lounging on my living room floor with her shoes off and her legs up on the coffee table watching perhaps the dumbest programs on television she could find. she was a superb compartmentalize her. able she told a reporter to focus intensely. college roommate once said she could study with a whistling tea kettle and then she said she could and i quote flip the switch marked oblivious. hit she could turn off whenever she had to. this is the woman i knew that there were things i didn't know better. i didn't realize what a price you pay for celebrity. i didn't know she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in march of 27 which would take her life 16 months later at the age of 61 and i didn't know for sure until i read her obituary that she had been in a loving relationship with another woman for 27 years. sally was very good at keeping secrets. it made me sad when i learned that and it made me sad that she felt she couldn't shared and i couldn't share her happiness. she had divorced steve after five years and they remained friends. sally chose to keep her life price up -- private. i think it's partly a function of the times and partly a function of intolerant society and a pain in the shame that it can inflict economic heroes and i would like to think that it might have changed over time and i would like to think that this book really sally at the burden of not being able to share the truth with the world. despite that i will say her legacy is entirely secure. she was an amazing woman, lucky and her parents who believed in education, believing giving their daughters what they wanted and didn't believe that anything should stop a woman for being what she wanted. she was lucky in her timing. she came around when the doors were opened after the women's movement. she came around when the government was turning around in the social situation in the country had changed and when opportunity knocked she knew exactly how to take advantage of it. i once said to her that i bought a great turning point in her life had been that moment in the stanford student union when she saw the article in the paper and made that choice. she also thought it was important for dinner on the way put a different spin on seizing the moment. when she would speak to student audience that she would usually get them, i guess the messages message is read her college newspaper. [laughter] she was amazing. she also did everything with a smile. when she came back from her first flight she said standing on the tarmac that was the most fun i've ever had in my life. she was 32 years old. she had lots of fun much later and she remains an icon for her life. at 5 feet 5.5 inches she was according to one of her colleagues way bigger than that. it wasn't until sally that you realize she's really short. i call the lessons i've learned from sally flying lessons because i think she taught me and she can teach us all how to fly high without ever leaving earth. her her life reminds us would ever own personal limits there something out there grander than we can measure more marvelous than we can imagine something waiting to be explored. she pretty don't need of a plumbing to have the right stu stuff. in any field or any endeavor and after smashing through the opening the selection of glass ceiling without messing up she brought back a wonderful lesson. what do you see out there she was asked over and over and ov over? sally ride put her science and eloquence together translating the dazzling reality she saw from space would be an encouragement to the rest of us honest. what did she see out there? while she said the stars don't want bigger but they do look brighter. sally ride, 61 years on this planet minus 343 hours, 47 minutes and 32 seconds in space definitely made our lives greater. i mourn her death two years ago but i rejoice in her life. she was the perfect first american woman in space and she was a great friend. thank you very much. [applause] thank you. there's a little bit of time and we have microphones if we have some questions. >> the other astronauts the first group the other time were also very talented. busche actually competitive wanting to be first of those six? >> the other six women were enormously talented. judy resnick died in the challenger explosion. all the women wanted to be first and nobody would ever admit it. there was a friendly competition and they all knew. they all told me pretty much the same thing that yeah i wanted it but nobody really was going to go out there and say how do i get this through because nobody knew what the criteria were. it was impossible to know what was on his mind. i believe sally wanted it sort of if that's possible and i believe she was chosen in large part because she was so smart and because she handled herself well and because of her tennis. the idea that she knew how to play entertainment are great i hand coordination. they were big plus is in her. >> because you are friends with sally do you think that softens your news coverage of her? >> i don't think it's often the news coverage at all. i thought about that a lot. there was nothing i didn't report and i am so grateful that i was reporting there for 24/7 news coverage and therefore twitter and instagram because i would have been probably felt obligated when i would hang out at steven sally's house to reports on the gossip they told me that nobody was interested. i could barely get my stories on the air. we had morning news, good morning america and i at the evening news, world news tonight. there was no other time to put stuff on the years except during the special events events coverage during a live transmission. there is nothing that i learned at the time there was significant that i did not report and i approached the book with a reporter as well. guess she was my friend but there's a lot of layers of the onion that are peeled away tha that -- thank you. >> is sally ride science the only thing that is perpetuating poor memory? >> darius i believe an internship or scholarship at nasa with her name on it. sally ride science is the legacy she wanted and that's the legacy she chose. the sally ride impact site on the moon is pretty cool. her company is probably her biggest legacy i would say and her memory and what she left us. >> in your conversations with her as the first woman in space the first american woman what did she saeb. [inaudible] >> she loved was happening with line. since sally flew nearly 60 women have flown in space mostly from his country but also the russian program. there are many women astronauts currently at nasa and formerly at nasa who never knew sally but were inspired by her. sally loved the fact that they were inspired by her role and she would frequently call them before they flew. in terms of nasa she was deeply disappointed and horrified during the challenger after the challenger columbia accident. believed in this assault in the record, believe that both of them are accidents waiting to happen because of mismanagement. it wasn't about technology. it was about management in both cases. that horrified her but she didn't want to get revenge. she wanted to make nasa better and in both cases she was part of the group that recommended changes. there were 135 shuttle missions. two of them are failures challenger and columbia and the rest were pretty darn successful. she was very proud of that. i know she would be disappointed that we don't have a more active program right now. she believed very much that human spaceflight programs would continue in she in fact would have liked to have gone to mars as long as she didn't have to train for it. she also believe very strongly in two things, one is robotic spacecraft. we don't need to risk human lives for everything into cop she believed in international cooperation. the only way it made sense was to do this globally and get countries involved together. >> could you describe sally? would -- you describe sally is an introvert. do you think being in introvert was a plus for her being the first woman in space? >> yes i think it was one