SALLY RIDE * Ride Estate Signed COA * Her Owned & Worn STS-61C Shuttle Shirt

SALLY RIDE'S PERSONALLY OWNED & WORN STS-61C SHIRT COMMEMORATING HER HUSBAND'S SHUTTLE MISSION WITH RIDE ESTATE COA

First American Woman in space DR. SALLY K. RIDE personally owned and worn size Medium polo  shirt commemorating her then-husband Steven Hawley's 1986 flight aboard the Space Shuttle COLUMBIA. Hawley was a Mission Specialist Flight Engineer, his second spaceflight. The Land's End brand polo shirt is typical of those issued by NASA to shuttle mission members.

STS-61C was the last shuttle mission before the Space Shuttle CHALLENGER disaster which occurred 10 day's after STS-61-C's landing.

The shirt bears a white embroidery logotype of the Columbia space shuttle along with the mission designation. [See similar shuttle crew polo shirt photo for reference only].

As the first American female astronaut, Ride had flown aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983 as a crew member on her historic, six-day STS-7 mission. Ride would go on to become the first American woman to fly twice, with a lifetime total of more than 343 hours spent in space. A two-time Challenger space shuttle astronaut, she would go on to serve on the Rogers Commission, the presidential commission investigating the Challenger disaster. She was married to Hawley from 1982 - 1987. She would later admit a 27 year relationship with Tam O'Shaughnessy, an American children's science writer and professor. Ride died of pancreatic cancer in 2012.

The Sally Ride Columbia STS-61C shirt is accompanied by a COPY of the COA from Mark Roesler, Chairman & CEO of CMG Worldwide, the Official Intellectual Property and Licensing Representative of the Sally Ride Estate certifying that this shirt (and others) were personally owned by Sally Ride. 

NOTE: This auction is only for the single blue Lands End Columbia STS-61C shirt shown. Any others are shown for reference only. 

Ride, the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space at just 32, was the first American woman in space, and only the third internationally after cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.

Condition is as shown. NOTE: Item ships folded. Shirt exhibits typical signs of age, wear and use; Shirt appears washed with one small hole at bottom.  One of the very few personally-owned and space-related Ride items to have come to market. 

Sold as is, as shown.