Historical past doesn’t file if Sally Journey rolled her eyes when she bought a have a look at the plans for the primary toiletry package NASA put collectively for its feminine astronauts—however she’d have been inside her rights to take action. The house company actually knew find out how to pack for males, offering them kind of the fundamentals—deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, razor. The ladies would get the necessities too, however there could be extra: lipstick, blush, eyeliner, and, critically, as much as 100 tampons—as a result of who-all knew simply what number of the common lady would wish in the course of the common week in house?
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That first toiletry package was deliberate earlier than June 18, 1983, when Journey went aloft on the shuttle Challenger, changing into the primary American lady in house, breaking the gender barrier the Soviets had damaged with cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, simply over 20 years to the day earlier. The tampon nonsense was not the one indignity NASA’s feminine astronauts usually and Journey specifically needed to endure. Her story is chronicled within the evocative new documentary Sally, a 2025 winner of the Sundance Movie Pageant’s Alfred P. Sloan characteristic movie prize.
Among the many memorable moments Journey skilled was the pre-flight press convention throughout which a TIME journal correspondent raised his hand and requested, “Dr. Journey, a few quick questions, sir…ma’am.” There was, too, the reporter who pointedly requested Journey “Do you weep?” when confronted with a very knotty drawback throughout coaching. There was the bouquet of flowers Journey was handed after the shuttle landed, supposed as a present to America’s first house heroine—a present Journey politely refused to just accept, sparking all method of criticism within the mainstream press.
Extra essential than all of that, although, was the personal—exceedingly personal—aspect to Journey, most notably her 27-year relationship along with her life accomplice Tam O’Shaughnessy, a marriage-in-all-but-name that wasn’t revealed till Journey died of pancreatic most cancers in 2012 at age 61, and O’Shaughnessy instructed the world within the obituary she wrote to mark her mate’s passing. Not lengthy earlier than Journey died, O’Shaughnessy gently broached how—and whether or not—she ought to reveal their more-than quarter century secret.
“I requested Sally about that. I mentioned, you understand, ‘I’m type of anxious. I don’t know what I’m going to put in writing, you understand, how I’m going to navigate this,’” O’Shaughnessy recalled in a current dialog with TIME, forward of the discharge of the movie. “And he or she mentioned, ‘You resolve. No matter you resolve would be the proper factor to do.’”
The movie, written, produced, and directed by Cristina Costantini, premiers on the Nationwide Geographic channel on June 16, and turns into obtainable for streaming on Disney+ and Hulu on June 17. Because it reveals, Sally and Tam made numerous proper—and hard—selections within the time they’d collectively, and Journey did a lot the identical when it got here to the skilled trajectory that took her to house. There isn’t a minimizing simply how alien the notion of feminine astronauts was at first, no less than within the U.S. The movie features a clip of Gordon Cooper, one in every of NASA’s unique seven astronauts, being interviewed within the early Sixties. “Is there any room within the house program for a lady?” the reporter requested. “Properly,” Cooper answered with out a hint of a smile, “we may have used a girl and flown her as an alternative of the chimpanzee.”
It wasn’t till 1976, a decade and a half after Alan Shepard grew to become the primary American in house, that NASA opened up its astronaut choice course of to girls and other people of shade. Greater than 8,000 hopefuls utilized; in 1978, NASA chosen 35 of them to grow to be astronauts, together with three Black folks, one Asian American, and 6 girls. Journey was amongst them, as was Judith Resnik, who would lose her life when the shuttle Challenger exploded at first of its tenth mission in January 1986. There was a substantial amount of handicapping inside and out of doors of NASA as to which lady would fly first—a lot the best way there was among the many males within the run-up to Shepard’s flight in 1961—and Journey and Resnik have been thought-about the main candidates. In the end, as Sally recounts, Journey was chosen as a result of she struck NASA mission planners as barely much less distracted by the celeb attending being primary, focusing extra on the mission and fewer on the historical past she would make.
“She beloved physics and he or she beloved house exploration,” says O’Shaughnessy, “and with these issues she may very well be intense, pushed.”
Journey beloved O’Shaughnessy too—although it was a devotion that was a very long time within the making. The 2 met when Journey was 13 and O’Shaughnessy was 12 they usually have been standing in line to verify in to play in a tennis event in Southern California, the place they each grew up. Journey repeatedly rose restlessly to her tiptoes, and O’Shaughnessy mentioned, “‘You’re strolling in your toes like a ballet dancer,’” she remembers within the movie. “That type of began our friendship. Sally was type of quiet, however she would discuss for eight minutes straight on totally different gamers and find out how to beat ‘em, find out how to whup ‘em.”
The 2 grew rapidly shut, however went in numerous instructions, with Journey learning physics at Swarthmore Faculty in Pennsylvania for 3 semesters starting in 1968 and later at UCLA for the summer season semester earlier than transferring to Stanford as a junior, and O’Shaughnessy changing into an expert tennis participant from 1971 to 1974, finally enjoying in each the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. O’Shaughnessy accepted her sexuality early, brazenly, and enthusiastically.
“I used to be on the tennis circuit and there have been just a few queer girls,” she instructed TIME. “However it was additionally simply the environment, even the straight girls. Nobody actually cared who you slept with…I used to be going to the homosexual bars in San Francisco and dancing with my mates.”
For Journey, issues have been totally different. When she was at Stanford she fell in love along with her feminine roommate and the 2 have been collectively for 4 years. However Journey insisted on protecting the connection largely below wraps and that secrecy was a no-go for her accomplice. “She couldn’t stand being so closeted and determined to maneuver on along with her life,” says O’Shaughnessy.
Journey would later select an reverse intercourse accomplice, marrying fellow astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, a transfer that was extra than simply an accommodating pose for a public determine in a rustic not prepared for same-sex marriage, however lower than a real union of the guts. “They have been actually good mates,” O’Shaughnessy says. “That they had lots in widespread. He was an astronomer, Sally was a physicist. That they had stuff to speak about. They have been each so thrilled to be chosen to be astronauts they usually each appreciated sports activities, so I feel they’d a stable friendship.”
It wasn’t sufficient. The 2 divorced in 1987, however even earlier than they did, Journey and O’Shaughnessy started drifting collectively as extra than simply mates. On the time, O’Shaughnessy was dwelling in Atlanta, after retiring from the tennis circuit; Journey, who was dwelling in Houston, would go to her regularly.
“I by no means thought we might grow to be romantic,” O’Shaughnessy says, “nevertheless it simply turned that manner one afternoon within the spring of 1985. When she would come to city, we might usually go for runs and lengthy walks and simply spend time collectively. Again at my place someday, we have been simply speaking. I had an previous cocker spaniel named Annie, I leaned over to pet her, and the subsequent factor I knew, Sally’s hand was on my decrease again. And it felt uncommon. I turned to take a look at her and I may inform she was in love with me.”
As O’Shaughnessy remembers within the movie, she mentioned, “Oh boy, we’re in bother.” Journey responded, “We don’t should be. We don’t have to do that.” Then they kissed.
Journey would finally fly twice in house, going aloft the second time in 1984, as soon as once more aboard the shuttle Challenger. After that snake-bit ship got here to tragic wreck, exploding 73 seconds into its final flight and claiming the lives of all seven crewmembers, Journey and Neil Armstrong, the commander of Apollo 11 and the primary man on the moon, served on the fee that investigated the causes of the accident. Journey left NASA in 1987, accepting a fellowship at Stanford and later grew to become a professor of physics on the College of California, San Diego. In 1989, O’Shaughnessy moved out west to dwell along with her. It could not be till 2013, a 12 months after Journey’s demise, that California would completely legalize homosexual marriage, and it will not be till 2015 that the Supreme Courtroom would do the identical nationwide. That was alright with Journey, who, as along with her relationship along with her school roommate, continued to consider that her love for O’Shaughnessy ought to stay a quiet and comparatively personal factor. However all that started to vary in 2011.
It was early that 12 months that Journey first confirmed indicators of sickness—poor urge for food and yellowing cheeks. Her physician recognized pancreatic most cancers. “The physician by no means mentioned what stage. He by no means mentioned the worst stage. We thought she was going to get higher, and we have been attempting the whole lot,” O’Shaughnessy remembers. “She was doing acupuncture, we have been meditating, we grew to become vegans. After which someday, we’re on the oncologist, and he mentioned, ‘It’s time for hospice.’ And Sally and I have been, like, shocked.”
Not lengthy earlier than Journey died, the couple grew involved that O’Shaughnessy wouldn’t be allowed to go to her within the hospital, assist make essential care choices, or share property as a result of they weren’t married—and couldn’t be in California. So that they went for the subsequent smartest thing, registering as licensed home companions, which afforded them the mandatory rights.
“It’s the worst phrase,” says O’Shaughnessy. “We used to name one another licensed home hens, as a result of it’s such a foul time period.”
No matter title they glided by, they might not get to get pleasure from their newly legalized standing for lengthy. Journey handed on July 23, 2012, simply 17 months after she was recognized. At first NASA deliberate no formal memorial or celebration of Journey’s life. Then, the subsequent month, Armstrong died and a memorial was held on the Washington Nationwide Cathedral, with 1,500 folks in attendance.
“I bought mad,” O’Shaughnessy says. She referred to as then-Senator Barbara Mikulski (D, Md.) who chaired the Senate Committee on Appropriations and oversaw NASA’s price range. Mikulski referred to as then-NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, who at first provided up a comparatively intimate affair for 300 folks on the Nationwide Air and House Museum. O’Shaughnessy pressed, and finally gained approval for a much more prepossessing occasion on the Kennedy Heart in 2013.
At present, Journey’s legacy lives on in Sally Journey Science, a nonprofit based by Journey and O’Shaughnessy in 2001 to encourage women to grow to be scientifically literate and to attract women and girls into the STEM fields. It lives on too in astronaut Peggy Whitson, who now holds the U.S. file for many time spent in house, at 675 days over 4 missions. It lives on in Christina Koch, who will grow to be the primary lady to journey to the moon, when she flies aboard Artemis II on its circumlunar journey in 2026. It lives on in NASA’s present 46-person astronaut corps, of whom 19 are girls. Journey flew excessive, Journey flew quick, and Journey flew first—doing service to each science and human fairness within the course of. Sally powerfully tells her story.
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