Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for August 7, 2007 A TEACHING MOMENT

From the New York Times...

Teacher-Astronaut to Fly Decades After Challenger

By WARREN E. LEARY

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 — Barbara R. Morgan is now an astronaut by profession, heading into space this week for the first time on the space shuttle. But she said she would be approaching her mission “with the mind, eyes, ears and heart of a teacher.”

“That’s what I am, a teacher,” Ms. Morgan said, “That’s what I am at my core.”

She said patience and perseverance were virtues that defined good schoolteachers. Living her principles, she is about to fulfill a two-decade-old dream by becoming the first “educator astronaut” when she and six fellow astronauts blast off in the space shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday on a mission to the International Space Station.

The flight will also fulfill a dream deferred from January 1986, when the shuttle Challenger blew up during takeoff, killing a crew that included the first designated teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe, Ms. Morgan’s friend. A high school teacher from Concord, N.H., Ms. McAuliffe had planned a series of educational sessions from space.

Not losing faith in the program, Ms. Morgan, as the backup teacher for that mission, kept the dream alive even when returning to the classroom by becoming an advocate for spaceflight and helping the National Aeronautics and Space Administration find a way to continue including teacher-astronauts in its plans.

“I believe in my heart that space exploration is key for all of us, especially for our young people to keep their futures open-ended,” she said in a preflight news conference.

The loss of Challenger proved to NASA that flying on the shuttle would never be routine, leaving no room for mere passengers like teachers or tourists. But the agency liked the concept of a teacher in space and in 1998 hit upon the idea of training teachers to be real astronauts, just as it trains scientists and other professionals to be mission specialists.

Ms. Morgan got the call after she had gone back to teaching elementary school in McCall, Idaho, and returned to NASA that year to become the first educator astronaut. Since that time, three other teachers have entered the program and are awaiting their chance to fly in space.

Endeavour’s 11- to 14-day mission is a busy one involving attaching a 5,000-pound girder section to the space station’s backbone, transferring thousands of pounds of supplies and parts, and testing a new system that lets the shuttle stay longer by drawing electrical power from the station.

On the tightly scheduled mission, Ms. Morgan’s primary jobs are operating the shuttle’s robot arm during three planned space walks and helping in the transfer of 5,000 pounds of cargo, including food and science instruments.

Because of all her astronaut duties, only six hours are set aside for Ms. Morgan solely for education. She is to participate in at least one interactive video broadcast with students on earth, with two others planned if the mission is extended to 14 days.

“The main part of the educational program will happen when we return to earth,” she said. Ms. Morgan plans to make a series of video “teachable moments” while in space that will later be used in lessons, and she is taking 10 million basil seeds that will be distributed to students to raise in growth chambers that they will design.

“The educational activities we’ve designed are interactive and interesting, fun activities they can get into,” she said, “It’s not about teachers standing up and talking in front of a blackboard.”

Ms. McAuliffe and the six astronauts who died in the Challenger accident will be remembered on this mission, she said. “The legacy of Christa and the Challenger crew is open-ended.”

Ms. Morgan said she would be taking mementos associated with Ms. McAuliffe but would not disclose what they were. “Christa was, is, and always will be our ‘Teacher in Space,’ our first teacher to fly,” she said in a NASA interview.

The 22 years since NASA first selected Ms. Morgan to fly does not seem as long to her as many people think. “It really hasn’t been waiting, it’s been working,” she said. “Working as a teacher, and working to be an astronaut.”

Ms. Morgan, 55, said her husband, Clay Morgan, a writer and former “smoke jumper” who fought forest fires, and her two sons, one a high school senior and the other a college freshman, have been supportive and understanding. “Clay and the boys will be at the launch,” she said, “I’m sure they have some concerns, but they know it’s important and they are excited.”

The teacher-astronaut said she was looking forward to returning to the classroom after her flight to share her experiences. But she also would love to fly again. “I’ll be available,” she said.