Training Next For Teacher In Space Idaho’s Barbara Morgan Excited About Return To Learning, Becoming Inspiration For Students
Third-grade teacher Barbara Morgan said Tuesday that NASA’s decision to train her as an “educator-astronaut” for a space shuttle flight is a natural extension of the Teacher in Space program she entered 13 years ago.
“It’s not a one-shot thing or a two-shot thing or whatever,” the McCall, Idaho, teacher said at a news conference. “This is fully integrating education - which has always been a really important part of NASA’s mission - into a highly visible area, and broadening the reach of the astronaut program.”
She was the backup to original Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe, who died with the rest of the crew when the shuttle Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986. After waiting so long for her own opportunity, Morgan called the decision announced last Friday by NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin “great news for education.”
“NASA is in the business of inspiring and learning, and that’s exactly what we teachers are in the business of - inspiring our students and learning alongside them.”
Morgan, 46, has spent the years since the Challenger disaster working with what became NASA’s Teaching From Space program, undergoing annual physicals and traveling on education and consulting duties for the space agency.
“Christa McAuliffe was and always will be our Teacher in Space, and I’m really proud of her,” Morgan said. “That’s something that will never, ever get overshadowed and that never should be forgotten.”
Until last week there was no indication when Morgan might get an opportunity to continue McAuliffe’s work. But she persevered, and Goldin said a NASA panel reviewed her case and finally recommended that she be trained as a mission specialist to perform shuttle duties beyond education.
“It was not unexpected because we’ve been working very hard on this for many, many years,” Morgan said. “I had full confidence that at some point, when the time was right, decisions would be made and we would move forward.”
She will enter the yearlong mission specialist training course at the Johnson Space Center in Houston this summer and is expected to join a shuttle crew about two years later.
“I’m looking forward to the training over the next couple of years as much as the flying,” Morgan said. “Teachers often leave the classroom to go back to school, and that’s what I’m looking at this as; I’m going back to school to learn.”
The mother of 8- and 10-year-old boys born since the Challenger explosion said she had no hesitation about going into space.
“There are lots of moms and dads who are astronauts, and there were moms and dads on that Challenger flight,” Morgan said. “I feel that our children learn by example, by what we adults do. I intend to make this really positive for our kids, and they’re going to learn a lot. They’re brave kids.”