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NASA Relaunches Teacher-in-Space Program
Friday, April 12, 2002
By Jeff Foust
Spaceflight Now

"The time has come for NASA to complete the mission ­ to send an educator to space to inspire and teach our young people."

NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe announced Friday that the space agency was restarting efforts to send educators into space, starting with the runner-up to Christa McAuliffe in the original Teacher in Space competition.

He made the announcement Friday afternoon during a speech at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. The address was billed as a major policy address, but the announcement about flying teachers on the shuttle emerged as the major news from the hour-long speech.

O'Keefe said that Barbara Morgan, a former Idaho elementary school teacher who has trained to be a NASA astronaut, will fly on a shuttle mission after the "core complete" portion of the International Space Station's assembly phase is completed in 2004. An exact date for the flight was not announced.

Morgan had been selected in 1985 as the backup to Christa McAuliffe, the New Hampshire teacher selected by NASA to fly on the shuttle as part of the agency's new Teacher in Space program. However, the program was canceled after the Challenger was lost in a January 1986 accident, claiming the lives of McAuliffe and the other six members of the crew.
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2002 © Pole Star Publications Ltd.

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