Grade-school teacher to go to space station

By Tariq Malik

Staff writer

updated 2:25 p.m. ET July 11, 2007

HOUSTON - After more than two decades of waiting, NASA's first official educator astronaut is ready to fly.

Barbara Morgan, who first joined NASA's spaceflyer ranks 22 years ago during the agency's Teacher in Space program, is due to launch Aug. 7 with six STS-118 crewmates aboard the shuttle Endeavour on a construction mission to the international space station.

"We're very thrilled that we have a mission specialist who is an experienced educator," said Joyce Winterton, NASA's associate administrator for the Office of Education, during a briefing today here at the agency's Johnson Space Center. "Her mission will be an opportunity to engage many educators in their professions and their development, as well as students to understand what it requires to be an astronaut."

Long path to space
NASA first selected Morgan in 1985, when the agency announced she would serve as the backup spaceflyer to fellow schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe as part of the agency's Teacher in Space program. McAuliffe and her six shuttle crewmates were tragically killed during the 1986 Challenger accident, after which Morgan performed various activities and tasks in McAuliffe's stead as her Teacher in Space Designee before returning to teach elementary school in McCall, Idaho.

"Christa was, is, and always will be our 'Teacher in Space,' our first teacher to fly," Morgan said in a NASA interview, adding that showing schoolchildren how adults recover from tragedies such as the Challenger and Columbia accidents has kept her committed to human spaceflight.

Morgan returned to NASA in 1998, this time as a full-fledged educator astronaut and was assigned to Endeavour's STS-118 mission in 2002.

"The 'Educator Astronaut' and the 'Teacher in Space' are both teachers," Morgan said in a NASA interview. "They experience space, and then they share that experience through a teacher's perspective and through the eyes, ears, the hearts and minds of teachers."

Commanded by veteran shuttle flyer Scott Kelly, the planned 11-day STS-118 mission will haul more than 5,000 pounds (2,267 kilograms) of cargo to the ISS, as well as a new station gyroscope, spare parts platform and starboard-side addition to the orbital laboratory's main truss. Morgan will serve as Endeavour's prime shuttle robotic arm operator during the flight's three planned spacewalks, mission managers said.

A new power transfer system aboard Endeavour, which is designed to allow the orbiter to draw on the space station's power grid, could extend the STS-118 mission by three days, add an extra spacewalk and extend Morgan's teaching opportunities, they added.

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