Idaho Teacher Still Dreaming Of Space Flight
On the 10th anniversary of the Challenger space shuttle explosion, Barbara Morgan still is grounded because of politics she doesn’t understand.
Morgan, a third-grade teacher from McCall, Idaho, trained as Christa McAuliffe’s backup in 1985. As NASA’s official teacher in space, she makes an annual pilgrimage to Houston’s Johnson Space Center for a physical to renew her flight status. The agency pays half her salary.
McAuliffe, a New Hampshire teacher, died in the Challenger explosion along with the six other crew members. The nation’s worst space disaster grounded the manned space program for 2-1/2 years.
If NASA revives the notion of sending a teacher aboard the space shuttle, Morgan would go. In fact, she is eager for the mission.
“I don’t know what the hang-up is,” she said from Houston where she passed her annual physical Wednesday. “If it were left up to the teachers and students it would have already happened.”
In the days following the disaster, President Reagan promised there would be other teachers in space.
Sen. John Glenn, the first American to orbit earth, said civilians shouldn’t be in the program.
NASA since has studied the question repeatedly.
Most recently, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin appointed a committee in 1994 to study whether a teacher should ride on a mission. The committee’s recommendation was sent to the White House and there has been no response, said NASA spokesman Brian Welch.
Asked if NASA was waiting to hear from the White House before deciding the teacher’s fate, Welch would not answer directly.
“In the end, it will be NASA’s decision to make,” Welch said. “We want to work with the people in the White House.”
Welch refused to reveal the content of the recommendation, saying it would be inappropriate to do so before a decision is made.
Like President Kennedy’s assassination, the Challenger disaster is burned into the national psyche.
In a moment on Jan. 28, 1986, the bold plan to send a U.S. citizen into space blew up in a crazy, twisting white cloud in the Florida sky.
Morgan said she believes restoring the dream would have symbolic meaning for children and teachers.
“It’s important that we show our young people what it means to follow through, to push forward despite terrible things that happen,” she said.
“Some people call it PR (public relations). I don’t,” she said. “Before you can do any teaching you have to have the kids’ attention. This gets everyone’s attention. I mean that in a good way.”
Politics played a role in the shuttle explosion, a “60 Minutes” report suggested last week. NASA ignored warnings to delay the launch because President Reagan was set to mention the shuttle in his State of the Union address that night.
“I certainly don’t think that’s what happened,” said Morgan, who did not watch the “60 Minutes” report. “What happened to the Challenger was wrong. But what the crew and what NASA were trying to accomplish was right. … I don’t blame anyone.”
Morgan watched the fateful launch from the ground at Kennedy Space Center. She was ready to narrate the flight for educational television.
“I just know I really wanted to be there with them,” she recalled. “I was really disappointed when it was taking off, disappointed I couldn’t be on there, too.”
With the explosion came “a long rush of sadness” for the crew’s families. She prefers to remember her last glimpse of the crew’s faces as they boarded the bus for the launch site.
“They all had huge smiles. They had worked hard to prepare for something they believed in. They were ready to go.”
Killed along with McAuliffe were Commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith and astronauts Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis.
Since then, the survivors’ families set up the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. The center develops space-based lessons to foster interest in math and science among students in grades 5-8.
The organization’s 25 learning centers across the country and Canada include one at Seattle’s Museum of Flight where students and families can take part in simulations of space missions.
Morgan’s work for NASA takes her out of her classroom one week per month. During public appearances she has met two presidents and George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on the original “Star Trek” TV show.
“That’s all wonderful but that’s not what this program is all about,” she said. “People tell me I’m a celebrity, but that’s not me.”
The politics surrounding the decision to send her on a shuttle mission is “at many different levels,” Morgan said. “I’d better stop there. You understand…
“I feel NASA wants to do it. I just know NASA would like to do it,” she said. “A ‘yes’ sends out a very wonderful, positive message to our children. A ‘no,’ while it’s a decision, kind of shuts their doors.”
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