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Story highlights. 1  Sally Ride earned four degrees from Stanford University; she was an author. 2  President Barack Obama hails Ride as a national hero. 3  The former astronaut dies after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer; she was 61. 4  NASA: Ride broke barriers ... and literally changed the face of America's space program.
Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space. *Correction, June 1, 2014: This piece originally misstated the year that Sally Ride's father died. We also corrected the photo caption after learning that the photo agency was wrong about when it was taken.