This NASA Get Away Special decal was owned by Dr. Sally K. Ride. The Get Away Special, officially known as the Small, Self-Contained Payloads program, offered interested individuals or groups outside of NASA the opportunity to fly experiments aboard the space shuttle. NASA rotated payload assignments among three major categories of users (educational, foreign, and commercial) to assure that diverse groups had access to space. The program was canceled after the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia during STS-107 in 2003.
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she flew aboard 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 retired from NASA in 1987, Dr. Ride taught first at Stanford and later at the University of California, San Diego. Until her death in 2012, she was president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company that promoted science education.
Dr. Ride’s partner, Dr. Tam O’Shaughnessy, donated the decal to the Museum in 2013.
This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.