The Aerospace Corporation Announces Election
of Sally Ride to Board of Trustees

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (6/14/04) -- Former NASA astronaut Dr. Sally K. Ride has been elected to The Aerospace Corporation's board of trustees. She is the co-founder and CEO of Imaginary Lines Inc. and is the Ingrid and Joseph Hibben Professor of Space Science at the University of California, San Diego. Ride was elected to a three-year term June 10 during the board's second-quarter meeting at the company's headquarters in El Segundo, Calif.

Ride was selected for NASA's astronaut corps in 1978. She was involved in the design and testing of the space shuttle's robot arm, served as capsule communicator in NASA's Mission Control, and was a member of the support crew for the second and third shuttle flights. Her first spaceflight was aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983; her second, in 1984, also was aboard Challenger.

Ride served as a member of the presidential commission investigating the 1986 Challenger accident and chaired its subcommittee on Operations. She then served as NASA's first director of strategic planning and produced a report on the future of the space program titled "Leadership and America's Future in Space." She also created and was the first director of NASA's Office of Exploration. She later served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and is the only person to have served on both space shuttle accident investigation boards.

"We are extremely pleased to welcome Sally Ride to our board of trustees," said Dr. William F. Ballhaus Jr., president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation. "She brings valuable expertise, experience, and insight to our programs and initiatives and will help us further enhance the value The Aerospace Corporation provides to the nation's space programs."

During two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, Ride worked on a variety of national security issues. In 1989 she became director of the University of California's California Space Institute and joined the faculty at UCSD as a professor of physics.

She was educated at Stanford, earning bachelor's degrees in physics and English in 1973, and a master's and Ph.D. in physics in 1975 and 1978, respectively.

In 2001, Ride founded Imaginary Lines, a company dedicated to encouraging girls of middle-school age to pursue math and science. She has written five science books for children: To Space and Back, Voyager, The Third Planet, The Mystery of Mars, and Exploring Our Solar System.

Ride is a fellow of the American Physical Society. She formerly served as a member of the National Research Council's Space Studies Board and the UC Oversight Committee for the National Labs, and has served on the boards of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the NCAA Foundation, Apple Computer, The MITRE Corporation, and Veridian.

She is a member of the board of trustees of Caltech and chairs the JPL subcommittee of that board.

Ride was a member of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology for eight years, is a member of both the National Women's Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame, and has received numerous other honors and awards, including the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the von Braun Award, and the Lindbergh Eagle. She twice was awarded the National Spaceflight Medal.