Background
President Ronald Reagan announced the Teacher in Space Project on August 27, 1984. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) program would allow a teacher to be the first private citizen to go into space. President Reagan’s goals for the Teacher in Space Project were to honor teachers and inspire students’ interest in science, math, and space.
Over 11,000 teachers applied to the program. On July 19, 1985, Vice President George H. W. Bush announced that Christa McAuliffe, a social studies teacher from New Hampshire, would be the first Teacher in Space. For the next year, she trained with NASA in preparation for her Space Shuttle mission in 1986. Christa McAuliffe planned to conduct science experiments and broadcast two lessons from space.
Christa McAuliffe and six other crew members took off on the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. Millions of schoolchildren watched the first teacher headed for space when disaster struck. After 73 seconds in the air, the Challenger exploded. Everyone on board was killed. No other teachers were selected as part of the Teacher in Space program, and NASA officially ended the initiative in 1990.
Images
NASA, Official portrait Sharon Christa McAuliffe, STS 51-L Teacher in Space, 1985. NASA Image and Video Library.
NASA, Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe on the KC-135 for zero-G training, 1985. NASA Image and Video Library.
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1977 - 2001End of the Twentieth Century
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1977 - 2001End of the Twentieth Century
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1492 - 1734Early Encounters
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1920 - 1948Confidence and Crises
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