During one of the countless, often boneheaded interviews Sally Ride endured about her pioneering role in the United States space program, she schools a reporter on how to address her. “It’s Dr. Ride or Sally, but not Miss,” she says, flashing a smile that softened the lecture and much of director Cristina Costantini’s absorbing documentary the first American woman to go into space.
Throughout “Sally,” Costantini (“Science Fair”) leans into Ride’s face — the smile, the blue eyes, the moments of pensive regard — by closing in on archival images. Sometimes, she creates a palpable presence by linking footage with audio from interviews Ride gave during her lifetime.
In 1978, Ride was among the first women to enter NASA’s space program. Her groundbreaking compatriots were Judith Resnik, Anna Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Margaret Seddon and Kathryn Sullivan. Fisher and Sullivan appear here with stories that illuminate the era, but also humanize both their own and Ride’s ambitions. (Resnik died in the 1985 Challenger explosion.)
Ride had been a Ph.D. candidate in physics at Stanford when NASA announced that it was opening its ranks to women and people of color. That year, out of 8,000 applicants, 1,500 were women. As for the demographic make-up of those in that first class who weren’t white males? A news anchor reported, “Six women, three Black and one oriental.”
Costantini, along with editors Kate Hackett and Andy McAllister, make deft use of plentiful archival footage, often manifesting the energy and excitement that the U.S. space program generated, while having fun doing it: The director buoys a montage of Ride teaming up for flight training with John Fabian after they were announced as Challenger crewmembers with ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky.”
Having flown missions during the Vietnam War, astronaut Mike Mullane tells the filmmaker he didn’t think the women admitted had “paid their dues.” He recounts telling a joke in which the punchline was “tits.” After that he and Ride seldom interacted. In 1978, Mullane was the sinewy, crew-cut embodiment of the men profiled in Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff.” And the filmmaker follows up his dismissiveness with sitcom and movie clips making jabs at the notion of female astronauts. They are examples of bias, to be sure, but also signs of an impressive lack of imagination.