Idaho teacher’s long wait for space trip nearly over

BOISE – In less than four weeks, McCall, Idaho, elementary school teacher Barbara Morgan will launch as part of a seven-member crew on the Space Shuttle Endeavor, heading out on a space flight she’s awaited for 22 years.

“It’s really starting to feel real now,” she said Wednesday. “Lots of things worth doing take a long time to get there. That’s one of the things we work with our students (on) all the time. They think, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to be in school forever.’ From their perspective, 12 years of school seems like a long time. … Things worth doing take time and effort, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Morgan was the backup in 1986 for the nation’s first designated “Teacher in Space,” Christa McAuliffe. The two trained together for the mission. But the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff, killing McAuliffe and the other crew members.

“Things are so fresh from 20 years ago,” Morgan said. “There have been lots of painful lessons along the way.”

She’s now designated as an “educator-astronaut,” a fully trained mission specialist, rather than the original “teacher in space” designation. People shouldn’t view her flight as completing what McAuliffe started, she said. Rather, she’s continuing McAuliffe’s work, Morgan said.

“I want people to understand that Christa’s legacy is open-ended, the Challenger crew’s legacy is open-ended, and it will always carry into the future,” she said. “Every teacher’s legacy is open-ended.”

Morgan, 55, returned to her McCall classroom in 1986 and taught second and third grades at McCall-Donnelly Elementary School while continuing to work with NASA. In 1998, she was selected to become a mission specialist – a full-fledged astronaut – and reported to Johnson Space Center in Houston for full-time work and training.

Her space mission had been scheduled for 2003, but then came the disaster with the Space Shuttle Columbia in November 2002. Now, her launch date is set for Aug. 7 and there are three more educator-astronauts in the pipeline awaiting their missions.

“Space exploration is very challenging,” Morgan said simply. “From Earth you look out there and it’s beautiful.” But, she said, “It is an extremely harsh environment, and the more we learn about space through our exploration, the more we know how harsh it is.”

Much of the work that’s occurred since the Challenger and Columbia accidents has been designed to make space travel safer, she said. “I took a look at it personally, NASA took a look at it – all of us are committed to working very hard to making things better and more safe.”

She said she very much looks forward to being in space and looking back at Earth. “We think we’ve got all this air to breathe in our own environment. You look back and it’s just this thin, little shell.”

She’s particularly happy that the patch designed for her mission, STS-118, features the same “flame of knowledge” that the original Teacher in Space mission patch featured years ago. “Exploration and education … go hand in hand,” she said. “The flame of knowledge is there to represent and honor teachers and students everywhere.”

Lt. Col. Charlie Hobaugh, pilot of the Endeavor, said, “She’s awesome. I don’t think there’s anybody that works harder than Barb that I’ve had the pleasure to work with. She’s a great individual, she’s passionate about space flight and about education. I think she’s a great educator-astronaut to kick off this whole program.”

Hobaugh noted that Morgan is not just a teacher on the flight – she’s an astronaut. “She is a multifaceted, integrated member of the crew.”

As such, she’ll operate a robotic arm and take on other key duties as part of the shuttle’s mission, which involves delivering and installing additional parts and equipment onto the International Space Station, among other things. “We’re out to build a space station,” Hobaugh said.

She’ll also interact with students via a live link, if all goes as scheduled. Asked what she hopes kids will learn from her flight, Morgan said, “What we want kids to do is to look deep into themselves, and muster up all their curiosities, because the best learning starts with curiosity.”

Col. Al Drew, who was added to the Endeavor crew in April, said Morgan has taken on a key role in training him for the mission. “She gets to reprise her role as teacher with one of her crewmates,” he said.

Drew still remembers his feelings of surprise and horror back when the Challenger exploded in 1986. “That ghost isn’t going to go away,” he said. “It was kind of cold water in the face that this still is a dangerous business.” But, he said, “I think it’ll have a much better ending this time.”