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Teacher in Space · Mission 51-L · Jan 28, 1986 · Aftermath

On January 28, 1986, seven astronauts began a mission of discovery and education. To the nation's shock and sorrow, their Space Shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. The Challenger Shuttle may have been destroyed, but the crew's mission to educate and inspire lives on. Read on to learn more about the mission of STS-51-L and her crew of seven heroes.

The Teacher in Space Project

Early in the 1980s, in an effort to better connect the American public with its space program, NASA began to investigate several options for sending an American civilian into space onboard the Space shuttle. NASA considered sending a journalist, an explorer, or an entertainer, but ultimately decided on sending a teacher as the first civilian in space.

President Reagan made the announcement inaugurating the Teacher in Space Project on August 27, 1984. An Announcement of Opportunity was distributed in November, and applications were accepted beginning the following month through February 1, 1985. More than 11,000 teachers applied for the opportunity to take a global classroom of students on the ultimate field trip.

Among the applicants was a high school social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire. After hearing about the Teacher in Space Project while attending a social studies conference in Washington, D.C., Christa McAuliffe submitted an application on the last day they were being accepted.

"Christa discussed it with her husband Steve," recalls Grace Corrigan, Christa's mother. "He said, 'Go for it, Christa. Sounds like it's tailor made for you.'" In her application essay, she wrote, "I cannot join the space program and restart my life as an astronaut, but this opportunity to connect my abilities as an educator with my interests in history and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early fantasies. I watched the space program being born, and I would like to participate."

The First Teacher in Space is Named

From the initial pool of applicants, 114 semi-finalists were selected. A National Review Panel was tasked with interviewing the candidates in Washington, D.C. The panel of judges, which included four former astronauts, university presidents, actress Pam Dawber, artificial heart inventor Robert Jarvik, and former pro basketball player Wes Unseld, narrowed the field to 10 finalists.

The remaining candidates went to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, for a week of thorough medical examinations, briefings about space flight, and a series of interviews with senior NASA officials. On July 19, 1985, Vice President George Bush announced that Christa McAuliffe would be the first teacher in space. Barbara Morgan, an elementary school teacher from Idaho, was selected as Christa's backup.

McAuliffe's training for her space mission began the following September. In the fall, she took a yearlong leave of absence from teaching and began training for STS-51-L, a mission scheduled for early 1986.

In an interview conducted during this training period, Dick Scobee, the Shuttle Commander, told a journalist, "My perception is the real significance of it, and especially a teacher, is that it will get people in this country, especially the young people, expecting to fly in space. That's the best thing that can happen to our program. The short-term gain is a publicity gain. The long term gain is getting expectations of the young people in this country to the point where they expect to fly in space, they expect to go there, they expect this country to pursue a program that allows it to be in space permanently to work and live there, to explore the planets."

Lessons from a Distant Classroom

As a member of the crew, Christa's role was to teach several lessons from the Space shuttle to America's classrooms. She planned to conduct two 15-minute lessons from orbit for broadcast by the Public Broadcasting System, as well as film various demonstrations on topics such as magnetism, Newton's Law, and hydroponics in microgravity.

Her first lesson, titled "The Ultimate Field Trip," was to compare daily life on the Space shuttle with that on Earth. Conducting a tour of the Shuttle, Christa was to explain the crew members' roles, describe experiments being conducted on board, and demonstrate how the preparation of food, movement, exercise, personal hygiene, and sleep was different in low Earth orbit.

In "Where We've Been, Where We're Going," her second lesson, she was to demonstrate the advantages of manufacturing in microgravity; highlight technological advances that came from the space program; and project what the future would hold for humans in space.

When asked about the potential response to her lessons, she replied, "I think it's going to be very exciting for kids to be able to turn on the TV and see the teacher teaching from space. I'm hoping that this is going to elevate the teaching profession in the eyes of the public, and of those potential teachers out there, and hopefully, one of the maybe secondary objectives of this is students are going to be looking at me and perhaps thinking of going into teaching as professions."

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