Who is Sally Ride? All about Ellie’s favorite astronaut in ‘The Last of Us’

HBO’s The Last of Us tends to remind us that this post-apocalyptic world is the same as ours, except that it fell apart in 2003 (or 2013 in the games). This means that human history, whether it was the world wars, the SARS pandemic, or anything pop culture, all would still have happened up until humanity’s downfall.

This also meant that science has progressed as far as it did, and that includes space travel. Remember, Neil Armstrong first landed on the moon in 1969 and airplanes were a thing before international air travel was halted after the cordyceps outbreak. While Ellie never got to experience air travel, she did learn about human history and its technological progression through school.

In episode six of The Last of Us, titled “Kin,” Ellie revealed that once a cure is developed and humanity is saved, she wants to use the remaining time she has to travel through space since the majority of her life was behind walls. In addition, out of all the astronauts that she’s read about, the one she likes is Sally Ride. So who is this female astronaut that was mentioned in the show?

Who is Sally Ride? All about Ellie’s favorite astronaut in The Last of Us

Sally Ride was a female astronaut who died in 2012 at age 61. She grew up in Los Angeles and got her astronaut gig thanks to a NASA opening published in The Stanford Daily. NASA wanted to recruit women for its space program and said that it would be using a “sex-blind selection process” when selecting its future candidates. According to Space.com, what made Ride a decent candidate was her Bachelor of Science degree in physics, as well as her other achievements, such as her tennis experience, her arts degree, and her Master of Science degree earned in 1975.

In 1978, she was one of six women who were selected by NASA. According to Ride’s Biographical Data, she completed a one-year training and evaluation period and went on to complete multiple space missions throughout her career, making her the first woman to travel to space and one of the most well-known. In 2001, she founded Sally Ride Science, a foundation designed to encourage young women to pursue science. She also wrote books for children, designed to teach them about space.

Unfortunately, in 2011, Ride was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died at age 61 on July 23, 2012.

Ride may be Ellie’s favorite astronaut because she has “the best astronaut name ever,” but this female scientist showed that women can also travel to space and that the industry has room for them. It’s great that The Last of Us is honoring historical figures who made strides in their fields, as it helps educate viewers about other notable people in human history.

Episode six of The Last of Us is available to stream on HBO Max.