Documentary About Pioneering Astronaut Sally Ride

When Sally Ride died in 2012, she was praised as the first American woman in space, but there was much more to the story. Her obituaries let the world know a secret she had long held, that she and a woman named Tam O’Shaughnessy had been life partners for 27 years. Those same obituaries often ignored or minimized the jaw-dropping sexism Ride faced when she entered the first class of NASA astronauts to include women in 1978.

In the richly detailed Sally, Cristina Costantini reveals both personal and professional aspects of Ride’s life, showing how they were intertwined. With O’Shaughnessy as the central narrator, the documentary includes eye-opening interviews with family members and former astronauts and archival video of Ride herself, to create an engaging, socially relevant portrait of an American heroine and of the culture.

It also displays a refreshing and rare quality for a documentary with such access: Without for a minute undermining Ride’s importance, this clear-eyed film doesn’t sugarcoat her sometimes prickly personality.

Although Sally has already won the Alfred P. Sloan prize for a science-themed movie, announced in advance of its Sundance Film Festival premiere, it doesn’t dwell on the details of space travel. (Costantini previously won the Festival Favorite Award in 2018 for Science Fair, co-directed with Darren Foster.) With a wealth of period video footage, the movie emphasizes the frequently condescending attention Ride and the five other women in her NASA class encountered.

Costantini’s astute choice of clips shines a light on the culture at the time in all its sexism and homophobia. As Ride says, “The only bad moments in our training involved the press.” Kathy Sullivan, who was in Ride’s training class, describes the press posing stereotypical questions about romance, makeup and family to the the groundbreaking women astronauts.

Ride had no patience for such silly questions. Sitting alongside male astronauts at a press conference, she is asked if she plans to be the first mother in space. She just shakes her head and laughs. A female reporter’s voice inquires from offscreen, “Do you think that you are as good as any male astronaut here?” On camera, when a reporter refers to her Miss Ride, she replies that he can address her as either Dr. Ride or Sally, but not “Miss.” And behind the scenes, NASA had no idea what personal hygiene items to pack for a woman in space. “NASA engineers, in their infinite wisdom, designed a makeup kit,” Ride remarks. They also asked her how many tampons she might need for a one-week flight: Would 100 be enough?

John Fabian, another classmate, remembers Ride as unemotional and hard to read, recounting, “Her personality was all business.” Part of that demeanor came naturally and part of it was because she was so closeted. Sally goes a long way toward explaining both. In 1981, while Ride was in the training program, Billie Jean King was sued by a female ex-lover for financial support. Both King, who lost endorsements and had to play huge legal fees, and Ride’s sister, Bear Ride, suggest that King’s experience was a cautionary tale for Ride: She saw that she would pay a huge professional price if she were open about her sexuality.

She was often emotionally closed off in her private life, too. O’Shaughnessy’s comments about Ride are endlessly loving, but even she states, “Some of the very characteristics that made her the woman who could break the highest glass ceiling made her tough to be in a relationship with.” Whether sitting in a chair on an otherwise empty set talking to the camera, or in her house looking at letters and gifts from Sally, O’Shaughnessy is a steady presence, warm but unsentimental as she shares that she was heart-broken that Ride refused to go public with their relationship. Her enduring love gives the film its visceral emotional impact.

Some of Costantini’s most revealing interviews are with those who knew Ride best, as when O’Shaughnessy and Bear Ride discuss the buttoned-down family dynamics Sally grew up with. Ride’s mother, interviewed here, is asked if she knew that Sally and Tam were a couple. “Yes but it wasn’t something we talked about,” she responds curtly. Bear Ride relays that Tam was part of their family, but that Sally never spoke about the partnership, even though Bear herself is gay and out.

Ride was secretive as well with her ex-husband, Steve Hawley, another astronaut in her class whom she married during their training. He affirms that they both went into the marriage “in good faith,” and that up until the time she left five years later, “I suspected but I didn’t know” she was gay. Sullivan recalls that when she heard about the wedding, “One of my first thoughts was, great PR move.”

It was only when Ride was dying of pancreatic cancer that she was able to admit publicly that O’Shaughnessy was her partner. O’Shaughnessy notes that she talked to Ride about what to say about their relationship and Ride left it up to her, so she wrote an obituary acknowledging it.

It’s too bad that that film is marred by visual reenactments throughout. When O’Shaughnessy talks about an intimate dinner, we see two women in a kitchen dining by candlelight. Near the end, there is even a Sally stand-in a hospital bed. There is no dialogue in any of these scenes so they avoid the worst cheesy excesses, but they are distracting and unnecessary.

Sally stands perfectly well without any fussy touches, as an important addition to the record of what we know about a pioneering cultural figure — in all her complexity, ambition and guardedness.