This NASA Distinguished Guest ID badge was owned by Dr. Sally K. Ride for STS 41-D, which landed at Edwards Air Force Base in September 1984. Ride was married to Steven A. Hawley, a Mission Specialist for the flight, his first. STS 41-D was also the first flight for the second American woman in space, Judith Resnik, and Sally said prior to the launch "I'll be glad when there are two of us, so she can take some of the publicity."

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 ID badge to the Museum in 2013.