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And thanks for listening. Welcome to the HBR Idea Cast. I'm Allison Beard. Sally Ride, the first American

woman in space died this month at age 61. Before that, I had the honor of talking to her

for the September Life's Work section of Harvard Business Review

about her career in aerospace

and her more recent work promoting K-12 science education.

Here's our interview with this beloved pioneer

whose legacy will inspire us for years to come.

So, you've said that you never wanted to be a role model, but you obviously have become

one, so how did you get comfortable in that role?

I think that probably a little context is important here.

The right way to phrase it is

that I never went into physics or the astronaut core to become a role model.

And I never really thought of myself as a role model.

Well, I was an astronaut, or at least in my early days as an astronaut. But after my first flight, it became really clear to me that whether I had intended it or not, I had become a role model for a lot of young girls and in fact women my age and even

many older women. So I came to appreciate, first of all, the importance of role models to other people.

And I think that I slowly became comfortable with that as I realized

that number one it was important to people and that number two whether as I say

I had intended it or not. In fact, I was a role model to many others.

...