NASA - Teacher on Next Space Shuttle Mission - VOA Story

Engineers with the U.S. space agency NASA are fixing a cabin leak discovered earlier this week in the space shuttle Endeavour. Officials are saying the problem will not delay the scheduled August 7 launch to the International Space Station. The historic mission will be the first for a teacher since the disastrous Challenger accident 21 years ago.

Barbara Morgan, 55, is patient. In 1985, the schoolteacher was selected as the backup to teacher astronaut Christa McAuliffe, who later died with six others in the Challenger explosion. Morgan remembers being selected. "We were all really excited and really thrilled to be doing what we were doing," she said, "and Christa was, she was, is and always will be our teacher in space, and our first teacher to fly."

After the accident, plans for a teacher in space were shelved. Morgan went on with her life, raising two sons, and teaching young people.

In 1998 she rejoined NASA as a full-fledged astronaut.

She was to fly on a 2004 shuttle mission. That was later scrubbed as the shuttle program reorganized following the Columbia accident in 2003.
Next Tuesday Astronaut Morgan is trying again, part of a seven person shuttle Endeavour crew making NASA's 22nd flight to the international space station.

.S. Navy commander Scott Kelly is commanding the seven person crew that has been training for months. Charles Hobaugh is Endeavor's pilot. Astronauts Rich Mastracchio and Dr. Dave Williams of the Canadian space agency are returning to space for their second missions. First timers in space, NASA astronauts Alvin Drew, Tracy Galdwell and Barbara Morgan round out the crew as mission specialists.

Like all shuttle missions, STS-118 is about the future, bringing the International Space Station a step closer to completion and gathering experience that will help humankind return to the moon someday, eventually go to Mars, and, perhaps, beyond.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• NASA
• Space
• Shuttle
• ISS
• Challenger
• Barbara
• Morgan
• Christa
• McAuliffe
• astronaut
• STS-118

[auburngail26]

thats sad about Cristen.One day I want to have a chance to go up in space.

[DemocratAlvinGreene]

I have the cutest little Kitten!

[246trinitrotoluene]

space is just a lie concocted by the liberal media to destroy the fabric of our nation

it's all those damn same sex marriage parade lackeys who are sponsoring these lies

[JohnLenardWalson]

From:

Henry Kline Henr .Kline jpl nasa gov

Sent:

Mon 8:32 AM

To:

john lenard santamonicajohnhotmail

Mr. Lenard,

Someone sent me similar images about 6 months ago, they're military classified human spaceflight.

Johnson Space Center require large elaborate spacecraft to get them where they need to go.

--Henry

[o0O0o2]

you know why ? because of money ...

[rdangelo]

Obviously anyone can be an astronaut these days in this glorified Lear jet. Back in the Apollo days, only the best men got to be astronauts, and everyone was lining up. These are no astronauts, but tourists.