Sally Ride
The first American woman in space
Sally Ride was an astronaut and astrophysicist and in 1983 was the first American woman in space with NASA. She taught at the University of California-San Diego and started a company called Sally Ride Science to inspire girls to pursue science and math.
She died of pancreatic cancer in 2012, and after she died, it became public that she was lesbian and had been in a long-term relationship with another woman. She has inspired many others to follow in her footsteps.