Posted by Mike on 8/12/2007, 11:01 am Morgan is the mission's Educator Astronaut. She was selected for the Like all shuttle missions, STS-118 is about the future: putting the "I'm really excited about going up and doing our jobs and doing them Morgan trained side by side with McAuliffe and witnessed the 1986 In reminiscing about McAuliffe, Morgan said, "Christa's legacy was In 2002, Morgan was chosen as the first educator to become a mission More about Endeavor's mission can be found at the NASA Web site Link: **** Click here for link ****
On Wednesday, August 8, the space shuttle Endeavour (STS-118) launched
yet again on an 11-day mission into space, the "final frontier." One
member of the seven-member crew, Mission Specialist Barbara Morgan,
KD5VNP, said she let forth a loud "Woo-hoo!" during the launch. The
astronauts assigned to the mission include a Canadian doctor, a chemist
who knows sign language and is a former competitive sprinter and long
jumper, as well as a commander whose identical twin brother is also a
shuttle pilot.
astronaut corps 22 years after first being selected as Christa
McAuliffe's backup in the Teacher in Space Project. McAuliffe and the
rest of the seven-member crew on board the space shuttle Challenger
(STS-51-L) perished on January 28, 1986, a mere 73 seconds after launch.
While in space, Morgan plans to answer questions from schoolchildren.
She received her Amateur Radio license in March 2003.
International Space Station (ISS) a step closer to completion and
gathering experience that will help people return to the moon and go on
to Mars. "The mission has lots of angles," Matt Abbott, lead shuttle
flight director, said. "There's a little bit of assembly; there's some
resupply; there's some repairs. And there are some high-visibility
education and public affairs events. It's a little bit of everything."
well," Morgan said. "I'm excited about experiencing the whole
spaceflight, seeing Earth from space for the very first time and
experiencing weightlessness and what that's all about. I am excited
about seeing what it's like living and working onboard the International
Space Station."
Challenger accident in which McAuliffe and her six fellow crew members
died. The Teacher in Space Project was suspended then, but Morgan held
on to her NASA ties. In the months following that tragedy, she went on
the visits McAuliffe would have made, talking to children and teachers
all over the country. When she was selected in 1998 to become a
full-fledged astronaut, she jumped at the opportunity.
open-ended, and is open-ended. Any teacher's legacy is open-ended. I
hope, and I know that people will be thinking about Christa and the
Challenger crew and that's a good thing and they'll be thinking about
many, many teachers and others who have worked very, very hard for 20
years to continue Christa's and the rest of the Challenger crew's work.
I am just the next teacher of many to come, we've got three in training
right now, and there will be more in the future, teachers who will fly
as astronauts, so just, just one of a long step that will continue well
into the future."
specialist astronaut. The Educator Astronaut Project evolved from the
Teacher in Space Project. Both aimed to engage and attract students to
explore the excitement and wonder of spaceflight and to inspire and
support educators. Morgan's primary duty is the same as it is for the
entire crew - to accomplish the planned objectives of the station
assembly mission, as well as taking part in several education-related
activities. "The educator astronaut is also a fully trained astronaut
who does the jobs, does the duties that an astronaut does. Astronauts
and teachers learn and share; they explore; they discover and then they
go learn and share some more. And that's what this is all about." - Some
information from NASA.
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