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Crowd turns out to greet the R/V Sally Ride

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Sally Ride’s legacy as an explorer deepened Friday when a new research vessel bearing the late astronaut’s name arrived in San Diego to become part of a fleet operated by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The 238-foot ship came within a half-mile of the Scripps Pier in La Jolla as a tribute to the university, which became Ride’s home in the 1980s after she made history in becoming the first American woman to travel in space.

UC San Diego also is home to Sally Ride Science, a company that Ride co-founded in 2001 to promote science among school children.

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Ride, a physicist, died of pancreatic cancer in 2012. She was 61.

The R/V Sally Ride visited the Scripps Pier area on Friday.
The R/V Sally Ride visited the Scripps Pier area on Friday.
(Debbie Meyer/Scripps Oceanography)

Hundreds of people gathered on the pier to greet the $89 million ship, including Margaret Leinen, the director of Scripps Oceanography.

“There isn’t a person who was alive at the time that Sally Ride was making her voyages that doesn’t know (her) name, and many since that time because she was such a promoter of science for children, and especially in encouraging women to go into science,” Leinen said. (People will say) We know who Sally Ride is, ‘What’s the ship doing?’ ”

The spectators also included NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, who earned her doctorate at Scripps Oceanography.

“This is incredibly exciting because it embodies the spirit of exploration, both here at Scripps and in space,” Meir said.

The R/V Sally Ride will homeport in San Diego Bay, with other Scripps vessels. The institute will hold a public open house aboard the new vessel in late October. The ship will leave on its first mission in November when it conducts a lengthy exploration of the California Current.

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