Wanted: Teachers In Space
The United States plans to actively recruit teachers to fly in space, starting as early as this year, and hopes to have an educator in each new astronaut class, NASA's chief said Thursday.
Sitting beside Barbara Morgan, the teacher-turned-astronaut who is expected to get into space in 2004, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said Morgan's mission will be the first of many.
"This is not a one-trick pony, one-shot deal," O'Keefe said. "We're looking at a consistent program that goes down the road of always seeing an educator mission specialist in the astronaut classes at various levels of training and proficiency and veteran status.
"So that means we have to start running a national competition here pretty quick," he said, adding that the recruiting plan should be in place by the end of the year.
Working with the Education Department, NASA plans to look for teachers who can meet the rigorous standards of fitness and proficiency required to become active participants on U.S. space missions, O'Keefe said.
"This is a tough job, tough circumstances, the risks are not insignificant and as a consequence, everybody's got to be turning that wheel," he said.
Morgan, a 50-year-old Californian, is expected to be the first teacher in space since the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, when teacher Christa McAuliffe and six other astronauts died when that craft exploded shortly after launch.
Morgan, who taught grade school in Idaho for 20 years, trained as McAuliffe's backup on that flight as part of NASA's Teacher in Space program and has been waiting ever since for her chance to fly.
Wearing the traditional blue NASA flight suit with her name and gold wings embroidered on a patch on the front, Morgan said she was focusing now on getting trained, but recalled McAuliffe's commitment to the project.
"Christa truly understood the impact this was going to have on education," Morgan said. "I would love to fly as many times as I can and then go back to the classroom."
Morgan is part of the astronaut class of 1998, one of 31 in that group. Her flight has not yet been scheduled, but O'Keefe has said she will get her chance in 2004.
There are only 160 active, trained astronauts and astronaut-candidates now, and some members of the class of 1996 are still waiting for their mission assignments.
Any teachers chosen in the new recruiting wave would be in the astronaut classes of 2003 or 2004, O'Keefe said.
The Teacher in Space program that brought Morgan and McAuliffe to NASA was developed in tandem with a Journalist in Space program, but both programs died after the explosion.