This week, our eyes have been collectively drawn to the skies by an ongoing NASA mission.
The Artemis II crew – composed of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – is presently guiding NASA’s Orion spacecraft on an historic mission to orbit our moon. The group has already successfully circled Earth’s natural satellite, and is now making its way back home.
It’s been an affecting ride into the void thus far – in particular, the moment when the Artemis II crew proposed naming a bright spot on the moon after Wiseman’s deceased wife, Carroll, who died in 2020 of cancer. Here on Earth, people have been gripped by the notion of someone loving someone else so much that they carried their love further than any human has ever gone – and then bestowed her name upon a bright spot they found in the sky.
But it’s also been dotted with flashes of joy, and delight. From the reaches of space have come a spoof of the opening credits of sitcom “Full House,” as well as the sight of a jar of Nutella spread hurtling its way through the cabin during an otherwise routine moment.
And, one “morning,” the crew was awakened by the triumphant playing of “Pink Pony Club,” the 2020 queer pop anthem by queer pop artist Chappell Roan that’s become a beloved hit song. Its selection wasn’t some grand statement – just a fun song, effective for coaxing astronauts from their slumber.
But then, you add the context of Dr. Sally Ride – and a sweet wake-up “call” becomes something sweeter, still.
Ride, famously the first woman to ever go to space, was and is a hero for generations of girls and women. But even as she went where no woman had ever gone before – in her career, and in her trip to space – she was held back on Earth from being open about her partnership with Tam O’Shaughnessy, a woman she loved and lived with for nearly 30 years. All because Ride lived in a time when “being an icon” and “being a lesbian” didn’t go together.
While re-establishing contact with us terrestrials, Koch noted that “when we leave Earth, we do not leave it – we choose it. We will always choose Earth, we will always choose each other” In response to this sentiment, Ground Control offered: “Integrity from Earth, our single system, fragile and interconnected, we copy.”
It’s the same sense of connection-from-afar Ride herself experienced while on her own trip to the stars. In an interview following her ground-breaking flight, she noted that “all the imaginary lines of humanity … the tribal fears we hold onto … all the arbitrary restrictions we place on ourselves and each other – they mean nothing.”
Ride was held back from living her truth by those arbitrary restrictions while she was alive – she could never hope to publicly name a piece of outer space after O’Shaughnessy, as she might have wanted. But in 2026, a lesbian artist’s work can be played aboard NASA spacecrafts and be greeted with smiles, and without complication.
It’s a little something to hold on to, anyway. A bright spot in the sky, if you will.
Read more about Ride’s journey – on Earth, and above:
Dr. Sally Ride, the Queer Woman Icon Who Was Never Allowed to Be One
