(CNN) -- Sitting in a meeting at NASA's Science Advisory Committee on Monday afternoon, I heard the news that Sally Ride had died. She was important to everyone in that room -- mostly space scientists and NASA officials. But for a handful of women like me, she was an irreplaceable leader. Sally Ride, first American woman in space, dies Sally Ride wasn't the first woman to go into space, or to want to do so, much less the first woman qualified to do so. She would have been the first to tell you that. But as the first U.S. woman in space, on STS-7, the seventh flight of America's new space shuttle, she was the first woman astronaut most Americans knew about. And she used that fame for good.
@highlight
Sally Ride, America' first female astronaut, died this week
@highlight
Meg Urry: For a handful of women, she was an irreplaceable leader
@highlight
She says Ride was part of a wave of accomplished women who broke through barriers
@highlight
Urry: In later years, Ride took on science literacy, opening doors for younger women
Ride served on the NASA board investigating the Challenger disaster, then left @placeholder in 1987.