These fur-lined leather flight boots were owned by Dr. Sally K. Ride. The boots were custom-made for astronauts by The Dehner Company. As a mission specialist for space shuttle missions, Ride was expected to spend fifteen hours a month aloft in the backseat of a Northrop T-38 training jet, practicing navigation and communication procedures while conditioning herself for high performance flight. Ride, who had previously flown only on commercial air liners, enjoyed the experience of flying in the T-38, and it inspired her to take private pilot lessons to get her license. She also bought a part-interest in a small Grunman Tiger which she often took up by herself on weekends.

Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she flew on the shuttle mission STS-7 in 1983. Her second and last space mission was STS-41G in 1984. A physicist with a Ph.D., she joined the astronaut corps in 1978 as a part of the first class of astronauts recruited specifically for the Space Shuttle Program. Viewed as a leader in the NASA community, she served on the Rogers Commission after the Challenger disaster in 1986 as well as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) in 2003. She also led the task force that produced a visionary strategic planning report in 1987 titled, “NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space,” but known popularly as the "Ride Report."

After she left NASA in 1987, Dr. Ride taught first at Stanford and later at the University of California, San Diego, where she also served as the director of the California Space Institute. Until her death in 2012, she was president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she founded to promote science education.

Dr. Ride’s partner, Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy, donated the boots to the Museum in 2013.