Rest in peace Sally

 This is one of those gut check stories that just slips up on you. One of our pioneers is gone. Suddenly and without warning. this lady was a trail blazer, may her achievements long be remembered. Rest in Peace Sally and let it all ride now, for you have truly, finally slipped the surly bonds and touched the face of God.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

 Sunwards I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

 Of sun-split clouds – and done a thousand things

 You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung 

 High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,

 I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung

 My eager craft through footless halls of air,

 Up, up the long delirious burning blue

 I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

 Where never lark, or even eagle, flew;

 And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

 Put out my hand, and touched the face of god.

Sally Ride, First American Woman In Space, Is Dead

by Eyder Peralta

Enlarge AP Astronaut Sally K. Ride, STS-7 mission specialist, communicates with ground controllers from the mid-deck of the earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Challenger in June 1983.

In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. She blasted off aboard Challenger, culminating a long journey that started in 1977 when the Ph.D candidate answered an ad seeking astronauts for NASA missions.

NASA/Via AP In this June 1983 photo provided by NASA, astronaut Sally Ride, a specialist on shuttle mission STS-7, monitors control panels from the pilot's chair on the shuttle Columbia flight deck.

Ride died today in La Jolla, Calif. after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, her company said on its website.