“Sally risked everything to make history, but telling the world about us was a risk she just couldn’t take”
BY VEE WILSON, IMAGE BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
The groundbreaking new biopic, Sally, is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu (17 June), offering an intimate insight into the life of America’s first woman in space, and the hidden queer love story she kept secret for nearly three decades.
The new National Geographic film, directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Cristina Costantini, follows Ride’s NASA career alongside her once-secret lesbian relationship.
In 1978, Sally Ride joined NASA’s Astronaut Group 8, the first to include women and minorities. She later flew on the STS-7 mission aboard Space Shuttle Challenger, the shuttle’s second mission.
Not only did Ride make history as the first American woman astronaut to travel to space, and the youngest at just 32, but she is now also believed to have been the first LGBTQIA+ person in space.
The film not only celebrates Ride’s career but also reveals her private 27-year relationship with partner Tam O’Shaughnessy, a fact Ride kept hidden throughout her life due to the stigma around LGBTQIA+ identities, particularly in male-dominated fields like NASA.
“Sally risked everything to make history, but telling the world about us was a risk she just couldn’t take,” O’Shaughnessy says in the documentary trailer.
O’Shaughnessy narrates much of the film, sharing personal memories and emotional insights into their long-term partnership. Ride gave her explicit permission to speak publicly about their relationship just days before her death from pancreatic cancer in 2012.
“Tam was the closest and most intimate voice that we could get to Sally,” said Producer Lauren Cioffi.
Alongside O’Shaughnessy’s recollection, the film uses archival footage as well as memories shared by Ride’s NASA colleagues. Because there are few photos of the couple together due to the secrecy of the relationship, the film also uses dramatic re-enactments from actor look-alikes to depict key moments of their life together.
Sally premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, which recognises exceptional films centred on themes of science or technology.
Costantini mentioned that “NASA employees are being asked to take down any representation of Pride” following President Donald Trump’s cuts to federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI). “We made this movie not thinking it was particularly controversial,” she added. “We had no idea it would be this relevant.”
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