21 years after Challenger, a teacher gets her shot

Aug. 1, 2007 — -- By age 33, Barbara Morgan had taught school on an Indian reservation in the Rockies and in Ecuador's capital in the Andes. That did not quiet her longing for a classroom higher in the sky.

"I want to go on the space shuttle," Morgan wrote to NASA in 1985, applying to be the first teacher in orbit. "I want to get some stardust on me."

Her enthusiasm impressed NASA, but it picked high school teacher Christa McAuliffe instead, and Morgan as her backup. McAuliffe never made it to orbit: On Jan. 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded just after liftoff, killing McAuliffe and six crewmates.

Next week, Morgan, now 55, finally gets her chance at some stardust. On Tuesday, she is scheduled to blast off on her first spaceflight -- and America's first effort since Challenger to put a teacher in orbit.

NASA is playing down the flight's symbolism, and the impact of any teaching Morgan will do could be muted because most schools are on summer break. But her flight could give the space agency a public-relations boost at a time when it has been plagued by problems.

The breakup of shuttle Columbia in 2003 killed seven astronauts and raised questions about whether the shuttle program should continue. It eventually led the Bush administration to set NASA on a course to land on the moon again -- and, later, Mars -- using a new spacecraft.

This year, NASA has had to deal with an embarrassing astronaut love triangle, a computer meltdown on the International Space Station and a report from a panel probing astronauts' health that said unidentified astronauts drank heavily just before a launch on two occasions.

In a sense, Morgan's flight will be a reminder of a less complicated time at NASA, when shuttles had been flying for less than five years and McAuliffe's plan to make Challenger a satellite classroom for students across the nation reflected the program's educational ambitions.

In the years after Challenger, NASA's concerns about the shuttle's safety kept it from sending another teacher — Morgan — on a flight. Her hopes took another hit when the Columbia disaster grounded the fleet for 2½ years.

"It has taken a long time for NASA to fly another educator in space," concedes NASA spokeswoman Sonja Alexander, blaming the delay on management changes and the shuttle accidents. (A leak in Endeavour's cabin might extend Morgan's wait a bit. Engineers late Tuesday were searching for the leak and hope that fixing won't cause a delay, NASA's Bill Johnson says.)

McAuliffe and her crewmates are close to Morgan's thoughts. "I've definitely thought about Christa and the whole (Challenger) crew," she says. "They've been with us every day of training."

Morgan will ride on shuttle Endeavour, the $5 billion ship that replaced Challenger. Like McAuliffe, Morgan will sit in the middle seat on the ship's lower level. That's where most of the similarities end.

McAuliffe spent five months learning about spaceflight. She was to devote her time aboard Challenger to filming science lessons and teaching about life in space and the benefits of space travel.

Morgan's teaching will be limited to an hour of answering questions from schoolchildren. If time permits, she'll also make videos of the crew's activities to be incorporated into educational materials.

Morgan, a full-time astronaut since 1998, had two years of basic training in spacecraft systems. For seven years she has done astronaut jobs, such as serving as a "capcom," the link between Mission Control and crews in orbit. That allowed NASA to give her a long list of duties on this mission, not leaving much time for teaching.

The mission flight is "just another avenue" to inspire children, says William Gerstenmaier, NASA's top shuttle and station official. "I don't see this as a unique event."

Even so, Morgan's fellow astronauts say this won't be a routine flight. It will "be a time to remember that (Challenger) crew, Christa, and what that mission meant," says Endeavour astronaut Tracy Caldwell, "with Barb ... carrying the torch for what that mission stood for."