Last year , the US Mint announced that it would start creating quarterscelebrating the accomplishment of women"who made substantial contribution to the land " . The first quarter , dedicated to generator , poet , and civic rights activistMaya Angelou , entered circulation in January . Now , thesecond onehas joined it in the pockets of Americans featuring pioneering spaceman Sally Ride .
Dr Sally Ridewas the first American woman in space and the third woman overall . She join NASA back in 1978 and go to outer space doubly on the Space Shuttle missions , once in 1983 and again in 1984 . She was in heraldic bearing of operate the Shuttle ’s automatic arm , deploying satellites into infinite .
Ride die in 2012 of pancreatic cancer . She was hold up by her partner Tam O’Shaughnessy , with whom she co - founded the teaching company Sally Ride Science . She was the first somebody who traveled to space known to have been part of the LGBTQ+ community .
The coin feature article on one side a portraiture of George Washington by Laura Gardin Fraser . This was actually designed to mark George Washington ’s two-hundredth birthday , in 1932 . The Sally Ride side was plan byElana Haglerand sculpt byPhebe Hemphill .
The coin went into circulation yesterday , March 21 . The Angelou and Ride quarters are part of the US Mint ’s American Women Quarters Program , a four - year program to lionise the accomplishment of women , which have often been overlooked in the Mint ’s 230 - year land tenure . The program will release five Modern reverse designs a year starting this class through 2025 .
The two quarter released so far for 2022 bring the issue of US denominations of coin accepted as legal tender that have women on them to five : the Sacagawea buck , the Susan B. Anthony dollar , and the Helen Keller Alabama State Quarter make up the quint .
The syllabus has received over11,000 recommendationsfor charwoman to honor . The Mint has announced that the remaining three quarters to be released this year will featureWilma Mankiller(first distaff primary chief of the Cherokee Nation),Nina Otero - Warren(a loss leader in New Mexico ’s suffrage bowel movement ) and the first Chinese American film star in HollywoodAnna May Wong .
