SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Sally Ride was the first American woman to go to space back in 1983. And for a while, it seemed like she was the most famous person on Earth and in space. She dominated headlines. She was all over TV. Kids got to meet her when she made an appearance on "Sesame Street".
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SESAME STREET")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (As character) Hey, do you all know who this person is here?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (As themselves) Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (As character) You do? What's her name?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (As themselves) Sally Ride.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (As character) Yeah. Right.
DETROW: Sally Ride was also a very private person, and all that time, everyone was totally in the dark about a very important aspect of her life. It was not until Ride died in 2012 that the world learned about her 27-year-long relationship with her partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy. A new documentary from National Geographic gives us new insight into Ride's life. Cristina Costantini, the director of "Sally," is here with us now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
CRISTINA COSTANTINI: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
DETROW: What drew you to Sally Ride's story, and why did you feel like now was the time to tell it?
COSTANTINI: Yeah, you know, I, like many girls, was a big fan of Sally as a kid. And I think it was a very simple equation. It was just, you know, if Sally, a girl, can go to space and do big things, maybe I can do big things, too. And I think for so many of us young women and girls, that was the motivating factor. And then when I learned about Tam O'Shaughnessy, her life partner, when she passed away, I thought, oh, my gosh, this story is way more interesting. You know, NASA was barely ready for women.
DETROW: Yeah.
COSTANTINI: They would not have been ready for this. And so this film is really for anyone who's ever had to hide part of themselves to get where they want to be. And I think in 2025, that's a more relevant and more important story than ever.
DETROW: Yeah. I had such mixed feelings watching this because a large part of the movie is the clips of her talking in the way that I remember watching as a kid - just the way that she's so calm and so cool and so like, oh, yeah, no big deal. Flying in a Space Shuttle, you know? - and just the way that she was, like, this hypercompetent, inspiring person. And then, at the same time, you're really getting to the fact that, in a way, so much of that was a facade, and she had this really painful secret that she felt like she could not share with the world.
COSTANTINI: Yeah, absolutely.
DETROW: There's a lot to get into, but let's just start with the fact that her partner, Tam, is such a big part of this movie. Was it hard to get her to participate, or was that something that she was ready and open to do?
COSTANTINI: You know, to Tam's great credit, this is a story that she wanted to tell. I think it was important for her that the world know the real Sally. Every astronaut from the beginning of time, you know, our very early Mercury astronauts, they stood next to their wives. Our Apollo astronauts stood next to their wives, and their wives were celebrated along with them. And Tam never had that. And so in some ways, this film is correcting a history that was never told while Sally was alive. But Tam is an incredible person, and we've grown very, very close in making this film. And I think Sally's quite hard to understand, quite hard to read, and she becomes kind of the interpreter for us for Sally...
DETROW: Yeah.
COSTANTINI: ...And tells a very complicated story of who this person is.
DETROW: Cristina, I'm curious about your experience making this movie because you're sifting through, at the same time, all of these interviews and public appearances where Sally Ride has this carefully crafted demeanor.
COSTANTINI: Yeah.
DETROW: And then you're talking to people like Tam and others in her life who knew the full story. What do you think was lost to the world by the fact that this important part of her wasn't known in real time?
COSTANTINI: Yeah, you know, I think it's a real tragedy that Sally couldn't be Sally publicly while she was alive, or didn't feel like she could be. But Sally also was an introvert. She didn't like the public eye. And so I think you get to meet the real Sally a bit in this documentary. She's really funny. She's quick. Some of my favorite scenes are the scenes of her in press conferences when people are asking her if she would weep or if she's going to be serving coffee to men. I think she's really - she did an incredible job of walking this very fine line.
DETROW: You're mentioning this whole other plot point, this big story for not just Sally but the other women in her astronaut class. You're talking about this one particular press conference.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "SALLY")
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: When there was a problem, when there was a funny glitch or whatever, how did you respond? Do you weep? Do you - what do you do?
SALLY RIDE: Why doesn't anybody ask Rick those questions?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERT CRIPPEN: It's - the commander weeps.
(LAUGHTER)
RIDE: I don't think that I react any differently than anybody else on the crew does.
DETROW: I mean, it's just so farcical to hear that. And I was - my two thoughts were, one, the way that she just kind of smirks, and she's clearly bothered, but she lets it roll off her back, at least publicly.
COSTANTINI: Yeah.
DETROW: And two, I'm just thinking - I'm like, this is, like, the early, mid-'80s. Like, this wasn't actually that long ago. And yet this idea of woman doing this was just, like, unheard of to these reporters. Like, what was your takeaway from that dynamic?
COSTANTINI: You know, it really gave me hope that change can happen and change happens. You know, change has happened. I mean, they are some of the most offensive questions I've heard. The late-night shows were obsessed with her. You know, is she going to bring a handbag up to space? Is it going to match her shoes? And, like, NASA gave her a makeup kit and packed her a hundred tampons for a six-day journey. So there is a lot of humor in just how strange this was to the - especially the male world for a woman to be in space.
DETROW: Can I just follow up? - 'cause I had heard that anecdote of, like, the tampons has some sort of meeting. Like, well, how many do you think you would need? But in the movie, you point out they actually gave her a pack of, like, here's a hundred.
COSTANTINI: Here's a hundred tampons. I mean, I love that story so much. She - yeah, they were trying to calculate - and I think it perfectly embodies, you know, NASA engineers, the smartest people in the world. They can't figure out the very basics of, like, the female menstrual cycle (laughter). And that's what NASA was at the time. When they arrived, there were no other women and they were doing everything they could to fit in to this male-dominated environment. They were dressing like the men. They were talking like the men. They - every time people would ask them what it was like to be a female astronaut, they would say, I'm an astronaut. They would do everything they could to blend in. But then there were these moments. Like, it becomes so absurd (laughter).
DETROW: Well, that makes me wonder. You have now spent two years learning all the complexities of her. And I'm wondering, at the end of this project, is there one anecdote or is there one moment that really to you, says, like, this is Sally Ride?
COSTANTINI: That's a great question. There's so many great stories. I mean, I really feel like at the end of the day, this is a love story. And I think Sally was very private and very buttoned-up her whole life. And in her final weeks of life, she made the decision that Tam should tell this story, that Tam should be out in the open, and basically called her into her room and said, you tell who you need to tell. You know, we should be who you think we should be to the public.
And, you know, I think that was Sally correcting many years of forcing Tam to live in the closet with her and a very, very brave act. And, you know, they eventually - they exchanged rings. They became domestic partners and - legally, and I think that was very meaningful for Tam. And it's great to be able to celebrate that Sally, at the end of her life, came to that realization that they needed to be who they were in public and in private.
DETROW: That is Cristina Costantini, director of the documentary "Sally" about astronaut Sally Ride. It is streaming. Thank you so much.
COSTANTINI: Thank you so much. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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