our queer elders
sally ride
“you can't be what you can't see.”
—s.r., on the importance of representation
sally ride with her partner tam o’shaughnessy and their dog in 1991, photo from tam o’shaughnessy
sally ride (1951-2012) made history as the first american woman in space. in her youth, sally was on the competitive tennis circuit and even once played a match against billie jean king! with a phd in physics from stanford university, she joined nasa in 1978. in 1983, she flew aboard the space shuttle challenger, the first american woman and youngest american in space. sally reconnected with a former childhood tennis pal, tam o’shaughnessy, a few years later. tam describes when sally placed a hand on her lower back after the two had come back from walking tam’s dog: “when I looked back at sally my heart skipped a beat. she was in love with me—and I was in love with her.” sally and tam were together for 27 years, living openly within their private circle but remaining private to the public. when sally died in 2012 of pancreatic cancer, her obituary named tam as her partner, the first time she and tam were out to the public.
about the song
sally ride and svetlana savitskaya, photos from national air and space museum and museum of cosmonautics
in 1983, sally ride was on a post-flight press tour in cold war era budapest. sally and the other american astronauts were under strict orders to not interact with the russian cosmonauts, also touring the city. one night, sally locked eyes with sveltana savitskaya, the second woman in space, across a crowded room. sally immediately arranged a clandestine meeting after dark. sally and svetlana talked for more than six hours, laughing and swapping stories (and I’m sure they marveled at how when orbiting earth in a space shuttle the sun rises sixteen times a day). by the end of the night they were hugging and exchanged gifts—sally planned to give svetlana the shirt she was wearing. when they left their meeting place, sally let svetlana leave a few minutes before she did, as to not draw suspicion.
this song is an imagination of what else might have happened that night.
satellites
you caught my eye, a constellation in the sky
Vega on high you're the brightest star tonight
but it's getting cold; I should go
no one can know
how many lightyears or lines of longitude
were crossed that night
were crossed that night
a cosmic ray called by another name
orbiting in two vessels different but the same
was it divine to touch the sky
a holy satellite
how many lightyears or lines of longitude
were crossed that night
in flight, in spite
in liminal space
between translations
we're more alike than meets the eye
and when the sun comes up (like it did 16 times a day)
as the universe expands and contracts
I'll let you leave first
how many lightyears or lines of longitude
were crossed that night
in flight, in spite
in liminal space
between translations
we're more alike than meets the eye
we're more alike than meets the eye
k.a.castagno 2022
recommended reading
sally ride: america's first woman in space by lynn sherr, published in 2015.
american woman who shattered space ceiling by denise grady, new york times obituary, published in 2012.
sally ride: a photobiography of america's pioneering woman in space by tam o’shaughnessy, published in 2017.
loving sally ride, an npr shortwave program by madeline k. sofia and brit hanson, published in 2021.