“I understood that this was her basic nature, and she had a lot to lose, but I didn’t like it,” said O’Shaughnessy, although love ultimately triumphed. “I wish we could have been more open. I loved her. It would have been fun to share her more, even with some of her friends that she wouldn’t let in. She only let in certain people. And once we started the science education company, there was no way. We knew we were dependent on corporate sponsorships. We just decided, ‘We’ve got to hide it.'”
A private life
Tam O’Shaughnessy and Sally Ride in Sydney, Australia in 2004.
courtesy of Tam O’Shaughness
Courtesy of Tam O’Shaughnessy
Sally Ride as a teenager playing tennis in the 1960s.
Courtesy of Tam O’Shaughnessy
courtesy of Bear Ride
Astronaut Sally Ride poses in her classic leather bomber jacket in this undated photo.
courtesy of Bear Ride
Sally Ride as a teenager playing tennis in the 1960s.
Courtesy of Tam O’Shaughnessy
Astronaut Sally Ride poses in her classic leather bomber jacket in this undated photo.
courtesy of Bear Ride
National Geographic
National Geographic/Parker Hill
Juggling between these two very different aspects of Ride’s life posed a challenge for Sally‘s director. “I really think there are two different films here,” said Costantini. “One is that Sally that we all knew, who was almost too well documented. We had to bring in 5,000 reels from the NASA archives and sort through them to find some gems. It was a mountain of footage and a lot of it was labeled as just ‘shuttle era’ or something very nonspecific. We also had to sound sync it all, since it didn’t have sound.”
On the private side, she decided to rely on several re-enactments. “There were not very many pictures and not any footage of the two of them together,” said Costantini. “So we decided to create our own visual language around that love story that would help illustrate Tam’s storytelling in these private moments. It’s a careful weave of stepping away from the very public and going into the very private. I love that the story has these big, epic space moments and also these very quiet, intimate moments, the microscopic and the celestial.”
“We really made this film for anyone who’s ever had to hide part of themselves to get where they want to be, which is, in 2025, a more common experience than ever,” said Costantini. “I’m very inspired personally by Tam and Sally’s bravery: Sally’s bravery to launch on a rocket up into space, Tam’s bravery to live as a queer woman during a time when that was not celebrated by mainstream culture. I often think there’s a real lack of brave people nowadays. I open the newspaper and think, ‘Where did all the brave people go?’ Looking into Sally’s past, you can see echoes of some of the same struggles that we’re facing today.
