115 Secret Capsule transcript (Sally Ride)
Michael: [00:00:00] Famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. I've got two things to say before we start today's episode. First, we could really use your help growing the show and there's a very simple thing you can do. Leave a review for Famous and Gravy on Apple Podcasts. If you're listening on Apple, you just scroll down on our show page, tap the Stars, and write a few words.
These reviews help feed Apple's algorithm and help new listeners to find our show. The second thing is, if you yourself are interested in starting your own podcast and you wanna learn about how we built Famous and Gravy, we would love to have a conversation. Our email, as always is hello@famousenggravy.com.
So two things. Please write a review, and if you're fantasizing about your own show, please reach out. That's it. Thanks again. Let's get to it.
Michelle: This is Famous Eng Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at [00:01:00] hello@famousenggravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.
Michael: This person died 2012, age 61. She was known for keeping her cool under stress. She politely endured a barrage of questions focused on her sex.
Friend: Oh man. Um, I think it must be an athlete.
Michael: Um. Ooh. Uh, I don't know.
Friend: Carrie Fisher. Princess Leia.
Michael: Not Carrie Fisher. Not Princess Leia.
Friend: Okay.
Michael: Uh, who we actually have done an episode on.
Okay. She once said in regards to her gender quote, it's too bad. This is such a big deal. It's too bad our society isn't further along. End quote.
Friend: This is much easier to do when you're just listening along at home than you've seen the person and then you see it's like, come on. Yeah. It's so obvious who this is.
Archival: Yeah. That's actually really good. I think I also
Friend: requested to be on this, [00:02:00]
Michael: not supposed to
Friend: be here. Really regretting
Michael: this. Yeah, yeah. All right. By the time she began studying laser physics at Stanford, women had already broken through into the physics department once a boys club
Friend: laser physics. I don't know if I'm smart enough for this one.
Say it again one more time.
Michael: In her early days at nasa, she trained in parachute jumping water survival, weightlessness, and the huge G-forces of a rocket launch.
Friend: NASA I, I don't know if I'm right here. I'm gonna go with Sally. Ride.
Michael: Sally Ride. Today's dead celebrity is Sally. Ride
Archival: the feeling of. Looking back and seeing your planet as a planet is just an amazing feeling. It's a totally different perspective. You can look at Earth's horizon and see this really, really thin royal blue line right along the [00:03:00] horizon. And at first you don't really internalize what that is, and then you realize that it's Earth's atmosphere and it's about as thick as the F on a tennis ball, and it makes you appreciate how fragile our existence is.
Michael: Welcome to Famous Eng Gregory. I'm Michael Osborne. And I'm Michelle Linberg. And on this show, we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?
Sally Ride died 2012, age 61. I am thrilled to once again have Michelle Linberg back on the show. Michelle joined us for the Julia Child episode and Penny Marshall. That's right. This being your third appearance on Famous and Gravy, how are you feeling about your experience on the show so far? I [00:04:00] enjoy having you on to discuss, I don't wanna say forgotten women, but important women in modern American history.
How's your experience of the show evolving as you've been coming on More?
Michelle: Yeah. Well, I like that we have chosen women so far for me to talk about because these are women I feel like I should know more about and I want to know more about. So it gives me an excuse to really take a deep dive and get to know them better and be inspired by them.
Michael: My initial reaction when you say that is, okay, next time Michelle comes on, we gotta choose a dude. Dang. To say
Michelle: no,
Michael: I, no, there's enough. You know what? There's enough dudes in modern American history. We don't necessarily need to go that direction. No, that's, I agree. Like I feel like there are celebrities that we do where I feel like I know a lot about them and I want to get on microphone and talk about 'em.
But more and more as the show's gone on, it's people who I didn't really know that much about who I want an excuse to do a deep dive on. And every time I do that, I kind of. Uncover and discover a fandom that I didn't know existed. [00:05:00] Like now I get why this person is so important to all these people. So it's almost like the show for me has become an exploration of audiences.
Oh, interesting.
Michelle: And I would add to that, for me, every time we do this, I feel like it uncovers something about myself that I hadn't realized, which is kind of the point of the show, right? To say, where's the part of me that's like this person or not like this person? Or, what's something that I want in my life that this person really manifested?
Michael: Totally. It is an opportunity to look at celebrity as mirror. All right, let's get right to it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, died on Monday at her home in San Diego. She was 61.
Michelle: So that's it. That's what I wrote. I wrote down, wow.
I did read the whole obituary. And the next line does have more about it. No,
Michael: I mean they get into it. This is a first line category. It's all we look at. Was your initial reaction, like, that's [00:06:00] it. Well,
Michelle: yeah, that's the obvious thing about her that everyone knows.
Michael: Say more.
Michelle: Can you say a little more like, so I, do you rewrite them in your mind like, well, what could have, what would I wanted it to say?
Kind of sometimes. Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. The ones I enjoy are the ones that, you know, hint at some deeper story. There is a case to be made that understatement does all the work. But I don't know, man. I need a little bit more effort here. Well, especially
Michelle: in light. So at the time, do you wanna talk about Tam yet?
Michael: Yeah, no, I think it's an important thing because it comes out in her obituary.
So, yeah, go ahead. And you, you explain it Tam.
Michelle: So, Tam O'Shaughnessy. Was her business and life partner for 27 years, and they'd known each other since they were children, and their relationship was secret. The fact that she was gay was a secret her entire life, but as she was dying, Tam says, who am I to you?
Archival: Who am I gonna be to the world? Who am I gonna [00:07:00] be to the people that don't know that we've been together? We love each other. She just kind of thought about it and she said, you decide what? Whatever you decide will be fine. So when I wrote the obituary, I just thought, you know what, Sally was an honest person except for this little thin area, and it's just not right.
Michelle: Unimaginable to have your partner of 27 years dying and no one knows that you are their partner. Oh my God. And not in this obituary maybe, but she wrote one, not the New York Times one, but that was breaking news. And so why is that not, I mean, were they just trying to be respectful? To not put it as, I
Michael: don't think that belongs in the first line no matter what, but I think what you do as a writer is say something about w well regarded and, you know, like deeply private, but accomplished first woman to find physicists, [00:08:00] something like that.
Because Sally Ride's relationship with her own celebrity is very unintentional. It, she did have pressure on her because of this accomplishment that put her in a place where she was extraordinarily guarded. And I feel like you could capture that idea. I want to go back though, 'cause I decided to look at some other first line obits from other astronauts.
Oh. To see like, how often does this happen? So Alan Shepherd, 1998, Alan Shepherd, the first American to fly in space, lifting national spirits at a decisive moment of Cold War anxiety. And later, one of only 12 astronauts to walk on the moon died late Tuesday night at a hospital in Monterey, California.
That's a little bit more what I'm used to. Yeah. John Glenn, 2016. John Glenn, a freckled faced son of Ohio, who was hailed as a national hero and a symbol of the space age as the first American to orbit Earth. Then became a national political figure for 24 years in the Senate. Died on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.
But then, and I'd forgotten about this episode [00:09:00] 17, a famous Eng Gravy, modest mood walker, Neil Armstrong, who made the giant leap for mankind as the first human to set foot on the moon. Died on Saturday. So the Neil Armstrong one kind of looks a little bit like the Sally ride one. It's one very short sentence, but it's better than, that's why it's a lot better.
Oh, I'm so mad. For now I'm even more mad for her. This is why I wanted to bring it up because at the time Ahmet and I in episode 17, both were like, good job. I like the understatement as it applies to Neil Armstrong because the quote is so goddamn famous. But just to say she was the first woman in space.
It's very disappointing. So, okay. I'm glad you had the reaction. I'm even more mad now that I've said it out loud. I totally agree. They should have made this more interesting and that's all there is to it. What's your score? I give it a five. I went three. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I'm seriously disappointed. I'm sorry.
This is a person who had some very significant accomplishments, had a very [00:10:00] interesting life, who was thrust into the limelight, whether she wanted to be there or not, and get me interested. Don't just say she's the first woman and that's it. I've been giving high scores lately. This was disappointing.
Michelle: I'm changing mine to a.
Four then. Okay. Okay,
Michael: good, good. It's always grading by committee. Uh, and maybe I'll go four too. Okay. I mean, it's a little lazy. Do better. All right, let's move on. Category two, five things I love about you here. Michelle and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived.
I'm gonna start, I wrote preparing for the next launch and what I was really trying to get at here is her work in supporting science, technology, engineering and math, STEM education, especially for girls and women, especially K through 12. So she co-founded Sally Ride Science in 2001 to encourage girls and underrepresented youth to pursue STEM careers.
I think it's a little hard to overstate how important she is as a figure of somebody saying,
Archival: turns out that a lot of girls are interested in [00:11:00] Science edu um, engineering math. Uh, when they're in third or fourth grade, but then, um, you know, starting in fifth, sixth, seventh grade, they start to move away from it.
And a lot of that is just because of the culture. They may not be expected to go on in science. Um, you know, a a a young girl who says that she wants to be an electrical engineer, you know, she might get a little different reaction from her friends than a, uh, 11 or 12-year-old boy might get. And, you know, uh, girls are really smart and they start to pick up on those signals and they start to think, well, maybe science, um, isn't for me.
And just getting a little bit of encouragement, um, seeing women who've gone into those fields and who have very rewarding careers and who love what they do helps them see a path for themselves in those careers and is really increasing the number of girls who are going into science. Yeah.
Michael: And she has major accomplishments in terms of supporting that.
It's basically the thing she parlays her [00:12:00] fame into. The reason I wanted to lead this off as my number one, Michelle, is that I've really been thinking a lot lately with Famous and Gravy, but with myself about, I think we reach a point in life where we ask ourselves what is our purpose? Yeah. What are we here to do?
And I think it's usually something that happens middle age-ish, broadly speaking, but it's after our big accomplishments. It's after we've had some luck or had opportunity or something. Right. I, and I think that Sally Ride was not necessarily put on this earth to be the first American woman in space. And I think she comes to learn that.
Yeah. I think she learns that. I was put on this earth to support girls and women. Mm-hmm. Getting into math, engineering, and science, getting into stem. And that basically becomes her professional mo, you know, for the second half of her life. And it's something I'm very, that's very near and dear to my heart.
So preparing for the next launch was like. Launching [00:13:00] the next generation behind her. That's how I described it. I love that. I was trying to be a little cute with my language. So yeah,
Michelle: that's my thing. Number one, I, I had something very similar. She used her legacy to lift others and she did a lot of things.
She was a professor, but yeah, she launched this business with Tam and with a couple other women, and she went through so much as a woman and we'll maybe we'll get into that more later, but I can imagine that this was just a deep passion for her.
Michael: I think let's get into it now. Actually, this documentary came out recently and there's biography and watched a bunch of interviews.
I, I think we kind of forget that once upon a time, the media and press was very interested in NASA and in astronauts and when NASA makes this decision to sort of open up the applicant pool for more diversity, but also for recruits, for people to become astronauts who weren't trained in the Air Force.
You know that that's when Sally Ride takes an interest. She's working on a graduate degree at Stanford
Archival: and I was literally standing in the Stanford student cafeteria. On Tuesday [00:14:00] morning at eight in the morning reading the Stanford student newspaper, and I saw in the lower right hand corner of page three, an ad that NASA had put into the Stanford student newspaper and newspapers around the country saying that they were looking for astronauts.
So I, I guess I got this job by applying to an ad that is so hilarious
Michelle: to me. Like, what? You can just, can you imagine going on Craigslist and like, oh, would you like to be an astronaut? Oh, okay. And you just send an application like what?
Michael: I need to update my Indeed profile. But the scrutiny, I mean, I think is what we were, my gosh, it was sort of astonishing, like how.
One, how dumb. A lot of the questions she had to answer were like, are you kidding? But then, I mean, there's so much more to it in terms of the, the kind of media phenomenon of Sally Ride as the first American woman in Spain. And I, I get it. Like we need heroes. Yeah. You know, and NASA is a place where the United States basically created a kind of hero pipeline.
Mm-hmm. It seemed like she did not quite [00:15:00] know that it was gonna be as one sexist and stupid
Michelle: Yeah. As
Michael: it was. And two, as intense as it was.
Michelle: Absolutely. I remember reading in the biography by Lynn Cher, who is also her friend, who said NASA did not prepare her for that. Like there was Right. Well, NASA was part of the sexism, obviously, like for years and years and years.
Michael: Yeah. It was a boys club, right. What I heard her say is that NASA overall was very patriarchal and very like boys club. Her recruiting class was not, they were very supportive. Yeah. It sounds like they were academics and a little bit more diverse. And so there's an inside bubble that's a little bit more supportive, surrounded by an organization that's still rooted in patriarchy.
Mm-hmm. Um, okay. So that's my thing number one. Let's move on. So what did you have for thing number two?
Michelle: Well, I wanna talk about her personality, so I'm gonna call her a cool nerd with swagger. Okay, so she's obviously a big nerd, right? She's a physicist. Yeah. [00:16:00] And there's all this stuff. Nerd. Yeah, nerd. I mean, I mean that in like, I love nerds, so it's a total compliment.
But yeah, she spent tons and tons of time studying or that she didn't have to study at first, and then she did when things got, you know, more challenging. And she would be in relationships with different people and all they would do is study or whatever, but she was cool. And there's all this, like these photos of her and these videos.
She just, the way she struts around, I'm like, you're cool. Like you and swagger. She was confident and she's unflappable, absolutely unflappable. When they asked you, you know, you alluded to these, these stupid questions. So they would ask her things like
Archival: during your training exercises, uh, as a member of this group.
When there was a problem, when there was a funny, a glitch or whatever, uh, how did you respond? Do you, do you weep? Do you, um, what do you do?
Why doesn't anybody ask Rick those questions? It's [00:17:00] the commander weeps.
I don't think that I react any differently than, uh, anybody else on the crew does.
Michael: There's a lot of like cool under pressure stories too. Yeah. Right? Yes. Because before she goes to space, she's the communications person, like Mr. Astronauts Sally with astronauts. Yeah. Right. With the astronauts. And they talk about her ability to be in a moment of crisis management and guide people to the right thing.
That she's got a sort of laser focus mm-hmm. Mechanical arm that is part of like, her responsibilities with nasa. I mean, there's a lot of cool character. She's not warm necessarily. No. You know. Um, but there at least, but she's
Michelle: at least not in her public persona. She's very hard, but she's a boss. She's
Michael: a quiet, like a quiet boss.
Yeah, and I admire that, Michelle. I mean, that's not me at all. I can't shut up and I'm not cool and confident, but, but what, what this all really speaks to is leadership.
Michelle: Did you see at the video of her being capcom, like, yes. That was cool to watch. It's awesome. I mean, she's really cool [00:18:00] talking to people
Archival: in space.
Got data down here to look at. Then let us think about that. She wanted to prove she could handle the pressure. Columbia. Houston, while we're looking into the camera problem, if you could give us spec one to a GNC machine, we'll start that.
Michelle: And she's so cool and confident when she is testifying. 'cause she serves on two of those commissions right?
Michael: In 1986 after the Challenger explosion, she's part of the committee that investigates what's going on. She's asking hard questions of the leadership at NASA and ultimately helps expose a kind of coverup.
Archival: The engineer's main problem was they didn't have. The proof that it was safe, did you think you had the database to show that it was safe at those temperatures?
No. Well, all, all I did was recite the, uh, data that we had, uh, available to us. That's what Dr. Wright is pointed out. They say it's not conclusive. They don't say We think it's safe. They say the data's not conclusive, and you say the data is [00:19:00] conclusive to you.
Michael: That accident should not have happened because there was, I didn't totally understand this, but that there's rings that were not meeting specification for certain temperatures.
Right. And that's what failed. And that's why the thing exploded. And NASA took some steps to try and hide that information. Yeah. And she helped uncover it. Same thing with the Columbia explosion years later. She's the only person to surround both. Be on both committees. Both, yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, I think all of this again speaks to leadership and trust.
Michelle: One thing I wanted to mention was that she supported the whistleblower about the O-Ring. So she was given information that she passed on that led to them realizing that this man had warned his bosses and NASA repeatedly, that these booster seals could fail in cold weather. And the challenger had taken off on a cold morning.
And it's like in retrospect, oh my God, why would you not listen? So this man was apparently shunned by all his colleagues and was having mental health issues because. That was brave. And then everyone was trying to cover it up, but he wi [00:20:00] he was the whistleblower and she apparently publicly hugged him and she's the only panelist to offer him support.
And he said that her gesture had helped him during that really hard time that she publicly went and said, I thank you, I support you. I just absolutely loved that she did that.
Michael: I love this great thing. Number two, Michelle. Okay, for thing number three, I wrote glass ceiling locked closet. 'cause I've been thinking about the fact that she was closeted and what do we make of that?
So one thing that comes out in both the biography and the documentary, I did not quite appreciate the Billie Jean King story. Yes. That Billie Jean King was an incredible tennis player and then got outed from a relationship and that there was like, she basically like lost all her money to legal fees.
Yep. Um,
Michelle: you know, she lost all her endorsements, like millions of dollars.
Archival: The tennis star admitted at a news conference that she'd had an affair some years back with her secretary [00:21:00] when I got out, and I lost every endorsement overnight. So that's it. So I had to start over.
Michael: She was basically canceled before that was a term.
Right. And it was by an extraordinarily homophobic society. And that part of the way the story is told about Sally Wright is that one of the reasons she may have stayed closeted was because she saw what happened to Billie Jean King and they were friends. Mm-hmm. And she already is facing these dumb questions from reporters about what does it mean to be a woman in space.
One of my actually favorite examples of the patriarchy is a little bit of a side note, but the kit that she's sent to space with when they're like, oh, we need to pack a medicine kit a, what do you call it? Like a do kit for a woman. And so the engineers at
Archival: NASA in their infinite wisdom designed a makeup kit.
You know, a makeup kit brought to you by NASA engineers, they asked how many tampons should fly on a [00:22:00] one week flight. She gets to one of these toiletry kits. I. And it's the spring loaded canvas covered thing. She pops it open. He asked me, is a hundred the right number? I said, no, that would not be the right number.
It's
Michael: comical, but it does say something that there was a team of people packing the me, you know this. Instead of asking
Michelle: her what she needs, they just assume like, just walk down the call and ask her. Yeah. Yeah. So, no, I, I agree. I mean, I was horrified to hear that story at the time.
Michael: The cultural norm was such that people believed it had to be an all male institution.
Mm-hmm. That she was at really cracking this through the glass ceiling. Mm-hmm. In a major way, in retrospect. I do think that had we known she was gay at the time, it would have really complicated the story. So I guess when I say glass ceiling locked closet, in some ways, her decision [00:23:00] to remain closeted in this 27 year relationship with Tam and, and so forth kind of safeguarded the legacy.
And I, I'm not saying that's that's a good thing, but I think it's like well played by her. You respect it. I respect it. And I think it's actually maybe the, like, I would've liked to have seen her come out in 2005 or 2008 Yeah. Or something like that later in life. But even then, I can appreciate that if your experience with the press is what it is.
I mean, the, the less we know about her in some ways, the better. Yeah. In terms of, you know, becoming a, a
Michelle: heroine, I respect her right to want to have a private life and not have her sexuality be scrutinized any more than it already was. Exactly. I understood it more, I think when I first heard, I was like, how could she do that to her partner?
Why? You know? And then when I Yeah. Heard about it, I really, well the community. Right?
Michael: I mean, I do think, and I think that there were activists who were like, Sally, had you come out like that would've been an [00:24:00] important gesture for the L-G-B-T-Q community. I don't know. I have a lot of forgiveness for this decision, actually.
Mm-hmm. And it's so much so that it's a thing I love about her, and I love that she eventually gives her blessing to her partner. Mm-hmm. All of this for me adds up to. A one glass ceiling at a time here. Okay. What'd you have her think number four. Well,
Michelle: I loved that she was almost a pro tennis player instead of an astronaut.
Yeah. This woman is so amazing at everything she does. She came so close to becoming a pro tennis player, and then we wouldn't, we would be having this conversation about tennis more. I had,
Michael: I, I, I had this too. She was nationally ranked as a junior tennis player. She considered going pro and eventually decided science is better for me.
And we mentioned Billie Jean King. Yeah. Like they, they become friends. They're friends. They went to camp together.
Michelle: They played tennis together. It's, do you play tennis, Michelle? I do not play tennis. Do you play tennis? I have played tennis, but I'm not good at it.
Michael: I used to. There was a period of [00:25:00] time where I was super into it.
My experience of it is, boy, you can get into your head if you're not having a good day. Like it becomes this very personal, psychological challenge in a way that's different than, you know, if you're having a bad day on the basketball court, you pass it a little bit more. Not with tennis. Right. With tennis, it is like you against your opponent, but your opponent is sometimes also you.
You,
Michelle: yeah. Well, she talks about that like you know that she's at Swarthmore, right? And then she decides. No, I, she doesn't like that. They don't have indoor courts there. It's too cold. A lot of things I read said she's a California girl. She goes back to California and goes to Stanford, right? And she starts playing there and then she's, maybe I should do this.
Maybe I should really do this tennis thing. So she tries it and she has a day where she plays several games and she's exhausted. Her body hurts, and she says, Nope. Yep, that's it. I don't wanna do it.
Michael: I think, I mean, obviously she's fit, it's because of this that she's considered as an [00:26:00] astronaut. Not only is she a brilliant physicist, but she's also athletic, which is necessary.
Okay, I'll give you my thing. Number five. I wrote thin blue envelope, and part of what I wanted to get at here is her, not just environmental activism, but it's really like about environmental science, that a tremendous amount of the data we have about the earth system comes from nasa, right? And comes from remote sensing, and this is part of her support for STEM education too.
She wrote a co-authored a book called Mission Planet Earth and Mission Save the Planet. These are children's books that are about climate change and action and science literacy. She also co-led this earth cam program, which allows students to photograph earth from space and study geography and environmental change.
There's actually a lot of attention to global environmental change in her work. But it also relates to the experience of seeing Earth from space that in the environmental [00:27:00] movement, they talk a lot about how when the astronauts get into space and look at earth, one, you cannot photograph it. You cannot capture how astonishing and beautiful this is.
It's also that there is this thin envelope of light blue hovering around the earth. That is the atmosphere that is this itty bitty zone in which all of life lives. Because that's where, you know, water exists as vapor and as liquid. And once you see that, you realize there's no borders. You realize that there is a sort of beauty in the miracle of life on planet earth.
She says she doesn't have like a spiritual awakening or anything like that when she sees earth from space. But I, I actually would want to talk with her about that because I think it plants a seed for something that sprouts later to see the earth like that. So I love her environmental activism and I love that she was one of many astronauts who came back to Planet [00:28:00] Earth and said.
This is a beautiful planet that we need to protect. Mm. So that was my thing. Number five.
Michelle: Yeah. I came across, I was also interested in that, and I discovered this term called the overview effect, and it's the feeling the astronauts feel when they. Our viewing earth from space. It was coined by space philosopher Frank White.
It's this awe, and it often leads to this profound appreciation for our fragility and interconnectedness.
Michael: I mean, I think this may actually wind up being the most important consequence of space exploration and space travel is not that we get to look out deeper into the stars by getting off the planet and out into open space, but that we actually look back at our home and see it for what it is.
Yeah. In a new light. Okay. Awesome. Well, let's recap. So number one, I said preparing for the next launch, her STEM education work, especially supporting girls, especially around middle school. Number two, you said cool nerd with. [00:29:00] Swagger. Okay, cool. Nerd with swagger number three. I said glass ceiling locked closet number four, almost a pro tennis player.
And number five, I'm gonna rename this. Let's go. Overview effect, uh, thin blue envelope appreciating earth from space and environmental activism. Okay, let's take a break. Category three, one love. In this category, we each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships.
First, we'll review what we know about the marriages and kids. So there's one marriage to Steve Hawley in 1982. She was 31. Steve was also an astronaut. They divorced five years later, no kids. At 38 is when she began her relationship with Tam. She had had a, a relationship with Molly in, in college and that was also, uh, closeted.
So she's with Tam for about 27 years. She never publicly acknowledged it when she was live, even though Tam is also a business partner. They co-authored science books and they co-founded Sally Ride Science in [00:30:00] 2001 when Sally was 50 no children. After her death, her sister. Bear confirmed the relationship.
I thought it was sort of noteworthy that her younger sister is also lesbian and was outed like she married a minister and they got kicked out of the church. It's sort of its own interesting story. When Sally Ride's mother is interviewed for the documentary, I felt like they included the bits with her because this woman is here to say nothing.
You know, like she was like as cold and as you know, kind of, uh
Michelle: oh yeah, there's this. Great moment where they ask her, so Sally's kind of known for being a little more reticent. Do you know why that is? And she said, it's
Archival: none of your business.
Michael: Right? I think we just got our answer. Yeah. There's also a moment where, so Sally Ride's father had passed away and she was like, what would he say about her being out and her mother's like, I think he would've been more upset that she and her sister are Democrats than that they're gay.
Which I, yeah, like, so this is a lot about the family dynamic.
Michelle: The family was very progressive though, and [00:31:00] very encouraging of their daughters and very proud
Michael: of them. Yeah. I, I think actually that's worth pointing out that the family was encouraging around academic progression, but not in terms of sort of EQ or emotional, you know, availability.
Michelle: There are letters that she wrote to a boyfriend. In college and she said, I love you a lot. And the author of the biography, who was her friend, said, that's noteworthy, because she didn't hear those words from her parents very much. They did love her. She felt loved, but they were not a huggy family. They weren't loving, they weren't affectionate.
Yeah. So it was a little cold.
Michael: I think it's also worth saying that her ex-husband, Steve, did not know that she was essentially having an affair. Right. With Tam. Yeah. During the marriage. That was news to Steve when he found that out.
Michelle: Right. But he said they were more like roommates and it was kind of for a show.
Their marriage
Michael: sounded like it. Although he also said I loved her and, and I think I do believe she loved me too. So I don't know. What did you have for One [00:32:00] Love here?
Michelle: I had such a hard time with this because every phrase I came up with sounded like a bad romance novel. Like Hidden Love or something. Yeah.
Um, so my impression is that her and Tam had this. Really beautiful relationship in private, and having watched that documentary, did you cry? Uh, because I did, I did, yes. I felt so bad for Tam that they felt like they had to keep it that way. But I think Tam wanted to come out as being partnered with her and she had to respect Sally.
But it sounds like she thought several times about leaving because she couldn't, and that's why her Sally's previous partner had left partly 'cause she didn't wanna be in secret. So Tam chose to be there knowing that that was the arrangement. But I just wish it could have been different for them. But what were you gonna say?
Michael: So, okay, my one love is all aligned with this. I wrote pressurized cabin pressurized. Oh, I didn't even think of doing a space metaphor. What was I thinking you had to do? Do a space metaphor. You know, I mean, everything's [00:33:00] sort of bottled up inside. I think that she's actually a pretty bottled up person.
Even before she comes famous. She carries with her a certain amount of tension and it, I think that bears out in some of her competitiveness too, both on the tennis court, but also even at her time at nasa. And you know, the other thing I like about my pressurized cabin metaphor is, you know how when you get on an airplane, like if you do a work task or you're into a book, like you have like an unbelievable amount of focus.
Yes. Love that. Uh, I felt like that's part of the Sally Ride story too, that she's Yeah. Unbelievably focused and that it's kind of that almost like airplane mentality. She's able to compartmentalize really
Michelle: well. Right. Like she could put this away that, and that's what I like about being on a plane is that I can only focus on really one thing because I can't take all my stuff out.
I can only do this little bit and I can get a task done. And I have a hard time. I don't know if I have a DH, ADHD or whatever, but I have a hard time sometimes focusing, but on a plane, I can, and I feel like Sally could do that.
Michael: I wanna spend one more beat talking about Tam and their relationship. [00:34:00] I, I do think that there is a tragedy in a way that, that they weren't free to be out, but like, how much did it.
Compromise the love. Like I, I, I'm trying to still like think through how to interpret this story. There is a sexist, homophobic society that we live in, and that is reality. At the same time, they were able to have a 27 year relationship that looks like it was filled with love and with purpose, and they were there together for high accomplishments as well as for Sally's death as well as for business opportunities.
But I guess what I'm trying to push on here in a kind of uncomfortable way is. What is the tragedy here? Mm-hmm. Because the bigger tragedy to me, in a way is fame.
Michelle: I guess what I think is lost is, I mean, can you imagine not being able to walk down the street and hold your wife's hand? Yeah. And when you, like say you guys ran a business together and you couldn't talk about how you also have a relationship.
You [00:35:00] couldn't kiss each other in front of people. You couldn't talk about your relationship together for 30 years, my God. And even longer than that, because she was doing that in other, her other relationship too. And Tam, to not want that Tam to want to be out and say, this is my wife, this is my partner.
To just have to say, this is my friend for your entire life. Like, I can't even imagine what toll that would take on you.
Michael: Look, I'm pushing on this kind of from a devil's advocate point of view and from a. Naive perspective as somebody who's privileged, who doesn't have to think about what it means to be out and how dangerous that can be,
Michelle: and to be afraid for your life.
Because think about all the horrible things that have happened because of people came out. You know, I mean, it's, it's something that you and I as. Straight people can never understand fully and we should acknowledge that.
Michael: Yeah, I think, I think what I was trying to really like just think through is what the major pain points were and it's accentuated because of her fame.
That's I think, my only point. Sure. Oh, for
Michelle: sure. Yeah. Do you, yeah. The [00:36:00] question is would, yeah, she was not famous and she and Tam were still together. Would she have eventually made her relationship public? But it is interesting that when Sally realized that TAM would not be allowed to, at that time, the hospitals did not allow you in the hospital.
And if your partner was very ill, if that was an not family, and so said, who is this person about Tamp? She's my partner. And she did absolutely declare it when it came down to it.
Michael: Yeah. All right. That was my one love pressurized cabin make of that metaphor. What you will.
Michelle: I don't know which one I said settle on.
Uh, maybe, um, I'm gonna call it double life. Double life
Michael: is good. Keep it simple. Okay. All right. Category four, net worth. In this category, we will write down our numbers ahead of time. We will then talk a little bit about our reasoning. We'll then look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest.
And finally, we'll place Sally Ride on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard. I didn't know how to think about it. I don't know what the comps are. It does sound like Sally Ride Science was a successful enterprise, [00:37:00] we should say. She was involved in space.com during the height of the.com era, and it sounded like that was an endeavor that did not go well ultimately, but whatever.
It sounds like Sally Ride science has gone pretty well. The biography had some good stuff about her making a fair salary from speaker fees, so she's on a bit of a speaker circuit and the biography also made it sound like she kind of enjoyed the economic windfall of that. Sure. Prior to that, NASA was not a cash cow in any way, shape or form, and she was essentially an academic both beforehand after her time at nasa, so I think all the money comes in later.
That's about all I had in terms of my reasoning. Did you think through anything else?
Michelle: Yeah. Well, I, I tried to look up kind of the way you did for the obits. I looked up astronauts, net worth, famous astronauts, net worth. Oh, nice.
Michael: Okay. So you went with the comp route.
Michelle: Nice. Yeah, and so it, it really varies.
Like one of them was like 500,000 and it went all the way up to like maybe 8 million or something like that. For like [00:38:00] John Glenn or, you know, the most fam Neil Armstrong, you know, had to, Neil Armstrong's had 8 million on the, that was the one I was thinking of. Yeah. Neil, Neil Armstrong. So I was looking at that and then I was thinking, well, where else could she have gotten income?
Because I looked up what, how much do NASA astronauts make? You're right, it's not that much. It's the
Michael: reputational capital and it's a question of how much you parlay that into speaking fees. Yeah. Speaking
Michelle: engagements, endorsements, other opportunities. So that's what I was thinking about and it was like, her name is worth a lot.
I, you know. Yeah. It
Michael: was really a hard one to figure out. Let's go ahead and reveal, so Michelle Linberg wrote down 5 million.
Michelle: Michael Osborne wrote down
Michael: 15 million, and the actual net worth is estimated between four and 6 million. Let's call it 5 million. Michelle, I think you've got this right. Okay, this is well done.
That sounds about right, actually. Seems like she's living a good life, but this is not entertainment industry. No net worth salary. All right, so with uh, $5 million, let's place her on the famous eng gravy net worth [00:39:00] leaderboard. This is actually a nice company here also at the $5 million Dinner table is Hunter s Thompson, Yogi Berra, Fred Willard, Joan Didion, Peewee Herman, Paul Rubins, and Oliver Sachs.
This is the Nerd Table. This is where all the intellectuals hang out. Five million's, a really good number. I would like to sit at that table. That'd be fun. I would like to sit at that table as well. And a lot of these people are having documentaries about him year. Right. I was just thinking about Paul Rubins.
Michelle: Yeah. Did you watch that
Michael: documentary?
Michelle: I haven't, but I really want to. It's excellent. Yeah. I really
Michael: recommend it. I loved it. All right, well done, Sally Ride. Let's move on. Category five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.
Archival: They're the little Lebowski, urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers. Yes. And proud. We are. Of all of them in
Michael: this category, we each choose a trophy, an award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person.
What did you have here, Michelle?
Michelle: Well, I had a bunch of ideas, but my favorite one is that she was on Sesame Street.
Michael: [00:40:00] Yes. Did you have that too? I, well, that was one of my candidates. I loved this one. Yeah, I
Michelle: loved it. She's so cute. And she's still very much herself, like I wondered. I knew she would, when I saw that she'd been on Sesame Street, I thought, I wonder if this opens her up and makes her really playful.
No, not really. She's still very reserved, but she really respects their questions.
Archival: Could you see New York from, from the south, from the space shuttle? Uhhuh? It's possible to see New York. We don't go quite high enough in the space shuttle to see the whole Earth. You might've seen pictures of, of the Earth.
That just looks like a big ball. We don't get quite that high, but we can see all of the United States just looking out in front of us. Wow. And it looks, you can see all the colors. You can see blues in the ocean, and greens and reds on the ground. It's really pretty.
Michael: She is a consummate educator. Yes. It's sort of interesting that she chose not to have children, although.
I think we can understand why in some ways Is she good with kids? I don't know. [00:41:00] She's great as a teacher and that's worth pointing out.
Michelle: And she's in her space suit. And I, one thing I love about it is that this little note that she, and you know, a lot of people might put their last name for their name tag on their suit.
She could put Dr. Ride and she just put Sally,
Michael: I love that one. I actually struggled with choosing the right Lebowski award, mostly because I was looking for something that showed a different side of her. Mm-hmm. And that was kind of hard to find. Yeah. So I ended up, I I like that she's on. A quarter. Yes, I had that too.
That was my other
Michelle: one.
Michael: Yeah. There's a, a Nerdist article where Tam, so after Sally Ride dies, Tam, like in the years since has become her biggest champion. Mm-hmm. Like she is very much telling the story and trying to make herself available for interviews about Sally. Yeah. And one thing she says in an article about the quarter, I think the design reflects Sally's dreamy view of the future and.
Fierce determination. Her face is hopeful and inspiring. I love that the artist Alana Haggler depicted Sally next to a window on the space shuttle [00:42:00] inspired by her quote, when I wasn't working, I was usually at a window looking down at earth. And the e pluribus unum, the motto of the United States, meaning out of many is one, is over the United States.
The whole thing's kind of great. I love that. Sally Ride is on a quarter. When I was, uh, a kid, I was a coin collector and I still got em somewhere. And I am now gonna be on the lookout for a Sally Ride corridor. This was, uh, commissioned in 2022, and you can see the Sally tag
Michelle: on the quarter. You can see the Sally tag on the Ash Ride outfit.
Michael: Yeah.
Michelle: Can we give a shout out to the Presidential Medal of Freedom too and how Tam accepted it? That was honestly what made me cry in that documentary, the Presidential Medal of Freedom Ceremony, when, when Tim comes and accepts it
Archival: as the first American woman in space. Sally didn't just break the stratospheric glass ceiling.
Uh, she blasted through it. And when, and Obama also decided that I should be the one to accept the award, which also is like, oh my gosh, what is going on in our world? [00:43:00] Finally, you know, don't need to be secretive about who I really am anymore. And I just wished you know that Sally could experience what I experienced.
Tam O'Shaughnessy accepting on behalf of her life partner, Dr. Sally Kay Ride,
Michelle: it felt like it was a healing moment for her.
Michael: Awesome. Okay, let's take one more break. Okay. Category six words to live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them. I didn't find her to be particularly quotable. I'll tell you what I went with.
Okay. I saw that she said all adventures, especially into new territory, are scary. The reason I liked that is that I think that she's an adventurous spirit. I think you have to be, if you're gonna be an astronaut, I need adventure in my life. I feel like that's something that I don't know when I'm stuck, when I'm feeling low, when I'm wondering what my purpose is.
You know, [00:44:00] part of the answer for me is what is my next adventure? One thing that is hard about adventure sometimes is that sometimes it feels like everything's been done, that the world's been mapped and conquered, that there's no such thing left as new territory. And one thing I've worked to do in my adult life is be reminded that's not ever true.
That landscapes and ecosystems and cultures are always changing and that there's always something new somewhere. And that planet Earth is not static. It's dynamic. To know that there's an element of fear though, too, that they're scary and that part of what we're doing in an adventure is confronting our own fears.
One thing that I learned about Sally Rye, that's kind of wild, she apparently had a fear of heights. Wow. She went to space and she had a fear of heights. This was like a, a footnote in the biography, but that tells you something about like, and she does talk about there are risks. This, it is scary to go to space.
Make no mistake about it. You're sitting on a [00:45:00] seat with, you know, a hundred pounds of rocket fuel burning, you know, right behind you. That is a scary prospect. So, kind of a small quote, but all adventures are scary.
Michelle: I love that. I also had a challenging time finding a quote from her. So here's what I went with.
You can't be what you can't see.
Michael: Oh wow, that's great.
Michelle: Yeah, though I looked it up and it's apparently attributed to someone else, so she might've been quoting someone else. But Tam says that she said this a lot.
Michael: What is that? Okay, so unpack it. Yes. What does that mean, Michelle? So
Michelle: this goes back to her as an educator.
So her saying, we need models for kids, especially girls. Girls need to see women scientists. Out being astronauts, out being physicists out, being biologists out doing STEM fields. She grew up thinking that she would never be an astronaut because she thought that was a man's job. It never even occurred to her to do that until she saw that ad.
Michael: You know, it Famous and Gravy has been on a [00:46:00] little bit of a nerd kick lately. We did Michael Creighton. We did Stephen Hawking, and now we're doing Sally Ride. Something that's been top of mind for me lately is wonder and curiosity. When I hear her talk about the need to educate women, she talks about wanting to.
Nurture curiosity and keep that, I sometimes wish you would get a little bit more specific about that. Mm. Because what I think makes science exciting is when you feel like there is mystery, but almost even solvable mystery. Mm. What science is meant to do is chip away at the frontiers and knowledge around that.
Right. I don't hear that kind of poetry from Sally Ride necessarily, even though I do hear the right motivations of we need to support, you know, science education overall, particularly for women and girls.
Michelle: Yeah. I love that idea of, because I, I was never very good at science. But when you put it that way, like there is these mysteries to uncover that makes me [00:47:00] excited about it.
Michael: I came to it late and I've tacked away from it a little bit, but I'm still involved in science communication. You know, look, as I was talking earlier about primary purpose, one of my questions is how much of a science communicator should I be? And maybe I just answered that question for myself a little bit with the mystery and the wonder part of it.
Like that's a good place to start. Okay, well let's move on. Category seven, man, in the Mirror. This category asks a fairly simple question, did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. I'm gonna share my notes with you here 'cause I think this is a really interesting one, especially given the fact that she was closet mm-hmm.
Closeted, yeah. For most of her life. Yep. I wrote that. I do not get the sense that she judged herself for being gay, but I do get the sense that she judged herself over overall that there is a competitiveness in her. There's also. I think a real emotional detachment. On a couple occasions, she goes to a [00:48:00] therapist, which is great, but she also, it seems like she goes like almost reluctantly.
Sure, because she's got deeper, bigger questions about herself that she can't answer, and that she's having a hard time answering the fact that she finds her purpose, uh, or at least finds a purpose as it relates to STEM education for girls and women. I, I'm inclined to say that yes, she liked her reflection, but there's still a lingering question in my mind, and I'm persuadable for the other case because I don't know that she's a particularly self judgmental person, but I do see her as a little bit detached from her.
In her humanity, in her soul. Yeah. You know, and, and maybe that's necessary, maybe that maybe she was shaped by culture that way. So any, I, you know, I, I'm, I'm actually kind of right on the fence, but I'm inclined to say she does like her reflection. How did you think about this category?
Michelle: Yeah, I was similarly thinking.
It was, it was complicated. But the case for she did is that she pursued what she loved and she didn't feel bad about it. Said, okay, it's tennis. No thank you. I'm gonna do physics, and oh, actually I'm gonna do. Space, [00:49:00] and it was unapologetic. She had all this drive. You know, we talked about how she protected her privacy fiercely that did lead her to be kind of reticent or emotionally distant.
But that says something about self-respect. Like you don't get to come into my private life. And now that's a good point. Yeah. I care. I'm protecting my private life. Drawing boundaries. Yes. Drawing big boundaries. Yeah, absolutely. Totally. That's a, that's a really good point actually. And she left her marriage when it didn't feel right to her, and she built this quiet life, but this affirming life with her partner.
And she co-founded a company called Sally Ride Science, you know, and I know that she felt a little funny, maybe naming it after herself, but she believed that it mattered and that points to someone who knew her value. So the inner conflict is more like. How she felt reserved, very private and secret, what you just said about her being kind of guarded with her emotion, which maybe could have something to do with fully embracing and expressing self-acceptance.
But I do think overall, I mean, I'm gonna come back to [00:50:00] swagger. I. Yeah, I think she knew how cool she was. There was this, uh, somebody said that she would say, oh no, I don't wanna be the first woman in space. I don't care about that. I just wanna go to space. But they're like, but
Archival: she did. There was no question that Sally wanted to be the first.
She never would've admitted that in an interview, every interview you read with her, she'll say, oh, well, I, I just wanna fly. I didn't come into this program to be the first woman in space. I don't have any, um. Great desire to be the first woman. That doesn't mean all that much to me, but getting up as soon as I can.
Does,
Michael: uh, hearing you talk it out, Michelle? I think there's more evidence than I was maybe considering initially that yes, she liked her reflection. I think I'm a more confident yes here. Sounds like you're a yes as well. Oh yeah, I think so. Yeah. Okay. Category eight, cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most wanna do with our dead celebrity.
I'll give you my answer. Okay. Um, I [00:51:00] absolutely need some alcohol. I need to see her loosen up a little bit. I was thinking mimosas in La Jolla. I was like, I wanna see Sally Ride. Get a little bubbly, Uhhuh, just a little bit giggly, a little, you know, the kind of champagne and nourishes thing in a mimosa that can make you kinda giddy at the wrong time of day.
I, I would love to see that side of her, like on a San Diego beach. And I think the question I would really want to ask is, talk me through your thinking in terms of the pros and cons of coming out. Mm. Like, let's pretend Sally, that you are gonna be out at. What would be the downside of that? Walk me through that burden and why that would be painful.
Both. Personally, but also in terms of legacy and impact and you know, talk me through the case for staying closeted and what are you protecting and what are you not able to experience because of being closeted. Mm-hmm. Pretty on the nose kind of conversation. Yeah. But this was deliberate obviously. Right?
It wasn't just impulsive to say I'm gonna remain closeted and [00:52:00] stubborn that it was I, I suspect considered. Mm-hmm. Although, who knows? Who knows? Yeah. And that's the conversation I'd want to have and I'd want her to, you know, let's have some mimosas and go for a walk on the beach and just talk about it.
So That
Michelle: sounds
Michael: great. I would love to do that with
Michelle: her. Amazing. So what did you have here? I said coffee because I know she loves coffee and because we're imagining this, I'm gonna send us into space and because I can. Yes. And so here's the scene, Mike. Okay. We're up in the shuttle and for some reason it's just me and her.
Maybe the other people are somewhere else, but, and she's gonna show me how to drink liquid in space. So yeah, like pouring it out and then we suck it. I've seen them do that with straws and stuff, but then the best part will be, can we, you know how the looking out the window scene that we were just talking about, she's gonna, oh,
Michael: over, what was it called again?
Overview effect.
Michelle: Overview effect. Yeah. And, and on the, even on the coin, she's looking out the window on the space shuttle. So I want her to [00:53:00] take me to her favorite window and just show me, teach. I wanna be her student. I want her to teach me, you know, tell me what she's thinking as she is in awe. And I wanna be in awe with her.
Yeah. And feel just so connected to. Humanity while we're looking at the earth together, and she's telling me amazing things about what it's like to be an astronaut. That's what I want. And we're drinking coffee. I love this scene, Michelle. I
Michael: mean, when she is asked about the experience of being in space, she sometimes talks about gazing back of the earth, but they all talk about weightlessness, and that's something that you cannot, oh, that's another, another thing.
Michelle: Yes.
Michael: You cannot simulate that on planet Earth. It's not like being in a swimming pool. Like there's no substitute for actually experiencing weightlessness in space. That would
Michelle: be so fun. Just to, I was imagining doing somersaults with her and like kind of flying around and just having fun. You know, just two women having fun in space.
Like, that's what sounds fun to me.
Michael: What an amazing scene. I love that. [00:54:00] Okay, we have arrived category nine, the Vander Beak final category named after James Vander Beak, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't want your life. In that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics.
So here we form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Sally Ride lived. Always helpful to start with the counter arguments. I do think that we've talked about it and I think had a healthy conversation about it. There is a downside to being closeted. Full stop. Yep. And there is a part of herself that she was not able to express whether she made a decision or felt like she was forced into a decision.
There was an inability to show public affection to her partner. It does sound like was the love of her life. And that sucks. Yeah. That, that your, that any expression of love is not accepted by your society and your culture is awful.
Michelle: That's what I had too. Just I would not want to hide my love for [00:55:00] 27 years, or my identity, or who.
Yeah, it's such a big part of who she is.
Michael: I also think that while it is almost always the case on Famous and Gravy, that the experience of fame is not desirable, it came more out for me on this. In researching this episode that, that there was this burden in a way of, you know, we are gonna put you into the system that we call nasa and you are gonna be selected to be the first American woman to go into space.
It's a sort of like hero training program, and you lose your autonomy and your story and your privacy and your, you become a brand, basically. Yeah. It's not like there's agents or there's publicity training. Training or publicity support within that. She just got thrown into the fray. Right. And that she had to sort that out.
Mm-hmm. All on her own. Yeah. That looks awful. That looks depressing. That also, I mean, you know, yes, [00:56:00] you get to go to space, but the question of can you still. Find yourself inside, given that experience. You know, that looks hard.
Michelle: There's one more thing I wanted to mention that we didn't talk as much about earlier is she lost friends on the Challenger explosion.
Yeah. Like those were her close friends and we didn't really mention that, but especially Judy Resnick, I think. Yeah. She was the second who, American woman in space. She was lost on that flight
Michael: and almost the first, right? Yes. Yes. The way the documentary tells the story is that she was strongly considered as, and a lot of people thought she might be the first American woman in space, so that could have been Sally
Michelle: on that flight.
Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. There's a little PTSD there. Yeah. Awful.
Michelle: But also just. Losing your friends losing. And also that ended her NASA career. She was done. She's like, I don't wanna fly anymore. No, they've lost my trust. Yeah. Yeah. They lost her trust. But on the positive side, she did get to make a difference by being on those two commissions.
Michael: Well, let's go towards the case four then. I mean, I do [00:57:00] think so. First of all, you get to go to space. That's awesome. That's pretty amazing. That's awesome. Weightlessness and looking at the earth from, I mean, there's only a handful of people who have ever lived who have gotten to have that experience. That is thing number one.
Would you want to. It's not something I grew up dreaming about. The more I do episodes of around astronauts, the more I think about space. Yeah. I'd like to see Planet Earth from space.
Michelle: That would be cool. I, I
Michael: mean, I don't know. If I were to strike it Rich Michelle and have the money to go up and back on version Galactic or whatever, would I buy that ticket?
I don't know. I, I, I'm not interested in colonizing the solar system. Yeah. I think that that's in some ways disrespectful for how special planet Earth is. Mm-hmm. That we think that we can replicate this experiment on other planets, but I would love to see our planet from space. Oh yeah. And I do think that ultimately the photographs.
Cannot do it justice.
Michelle: I grew up watching Space Camp. Do you remember that movie? Yeah, yeah, of course. And I think there was a part of me that was [00:58:00] like, someday I'll go to space. Yeah. But I would love to get that perspective, to have that feeling so that she got to have, that is definitely something I would want.
Michael: And maybe even before that, I mean I, you know, I led off with this in five things and I still think it's the single most important thing to understand and appreciate about her life. She. Parlayed that experience into service. Yeah. Like we talk on famous and Gravy about the upward staircase, which I have come to understand.
How do you take the cards you were dealt and turn it around so that you become a channel for the rest of humanity? Mm-hmm. So that you use your story to benefit as many people as possible and try and elevate as many people as possible. And she 100% does that with her work in STEM education. And she can confidently answer on her deathbed.
I have done a good thing here that is actually more important than the experience of going to space. So that that also I think, goes [00:59:00] on the list for why I would want this life.
Michelle: Yeah.
Michael: What else would you say here?
Michelle: To have her wonderful love with Tam. I mean, that's very enviable. Like to have such a wonderful partner your whole life and to get to work with her and to do all this amazing work that you're talking about with your legacy and inspire millions of kids, you know, especially young women.
What an amazing legacy.
Michael: It's funny because we don't get a chance to see them interacting that much because their relationship was hidden. But you do see the two of them next to each other and like, oh, that's an obvious yin and yang fit. Right? Yeah. Like there's like no question that like, oh, this relationship is one of those partnerships.
That makes so much sense. Yeah, and 'cause Tam is warm. Yeah. There is a kind of complimenting personalities that doesn't look hard to see to me. Absolutely. Yeah. Is there anything else you'd put on this, on the Vander beak list? Oh,
Michelle: the tennis, the almost tennis career is really fun just to be so
Michael: accomplished and smart.
I mean, maybe the [01:00:00] thing to say here is leadership. She's got a kind of unflappable swagger. She's also somebody who commands respect and separate everything else out. That is desirable, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's recap. So the four things we said were number one, you get to go to space and experience.
Wait, listlessness. Number two, finding your primary purpose and turning that into surface. Number three, soulmate. Yeah. And number four, leader with a well-rounded life. So with that, James VanDerBeek. I'm Sally Ride and you want my life?
Before we close, if you enjoyed this episode of Fame Engraving and you're enjoying our show and you've got your phone in your hand right now, please take a moment to share this with a friend. We want to grow our podcast one listener at a time that happens when you share our show. With other people. All right, Michelle, speed round plugs for past shows.
If people enjoyed the Sally [01:01:00] Wright episode, what else might they listen to from the famous and Gravy archives?
Michelle: Well, obviously the Neil Armstrong episode, modest Moonwalker, but that one's too obvious, so I'm gonna give you a different one. Um, I'm gonna say the cor, you whisperer Queen Elizabeth because of the private and public persona.
Totally different kind of person, but that idea of you have to be very, very public, but you have this private life and you kind of don't really wanna be, you know, necessarily so public. So that's my random recommendation. That's not as obvious.
Michael: That's awesome. Episode 1 0 7, corgi Whisperer, queen Elizabeth ii.
Okay, I'm gonna go episode 52. Electric Vanities. Tom Wolf. Oh, Tom Wolf wrote the book The Right Stuff, which was all about the NASA astronauts who were originally recruited. And there was a question that came up for Sally Wright a lot. Does she have the right stuff? Episode 52, electric Vanities. Here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy.
He was an [01:02:00] effective salesman and described as an energetic, gregarious, optimistic, and alternately grandiose and selfa face.
Friend: Uh, Ooh. Self-effacing. I'm feeling that right now. Um,
Michael: finally, famous and Gravy listeners, we'd love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment, a question, or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com and our show notes.
We include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels. Famous Eng View is created by Ahmed Kapur and me, Michael Osborne. Thanks so much to Michelle Linberg for guest hosting. This episode was produced by Evan Sheer, with assistance from Jacob Weiss, original music by Kevin Strang.
Thank you and see you next time.