HOUSTON -- Astronaut
teacher Barbara Morgan made a hometown call from orbit Thursday, radioing
students at her former teaching grounds as NASA discussed the necessity of heat
shield fix for the shuttle Endeavour.
After one
thwarted attempt due to orbital mechanics, Morgan successfully reached students
at McCall-Donnelly Elementary School in McCall, Idaho, where she
taught English and mathematics before joining NASA's astronaut corps.
"We
miss McCall a whole bunch and look forward to coming down some time and
answering more questions, and sharing this whole experience," Morgan told
the students via a ham radio signal. Ham radio operator Tony Hutchinson of
South Australia relayed her words to McCall-Donnelly students.
Morgan, 55,
spent Thursday overseeing cargo transfer between Endeavour and the
International Space Station (ISS), where she and her STS-118 crewmates are in
the midst of a busy
construction flight. Her crewmates and mission managers also discussed whether
a small gouge in Endeavour's tile-covered belly will need to
be repaired in a Saturday spacewalk. A decision is anticipated for late
Thursday.
But Morgan
also paused in her work to answer
questions from schoolchildren, first at Alexandria, Virginia's Challenger
Center for Space Science Education and then with McCall-Donnelly students.
"I've
been involved with NASA for over 20 years," Morgan told schoolchildren,
adding that her professional astronaut training officially began nine years
ago. "One of my jobs, and one I think I like the best, is getting to be
one of the robotic arm operators."
Students
asked Morgan how difficult it is to eat without gravity, how she slept in space
and what protected the ISS and Endeavour from asteroids and space debris.
"We
have a lot of protection onboard both the shuttle and the station," Morgan
said as she described the station's armored metal plates.
By
coincidence, Endeavour commander Scott Kelly reported finding a tiny, one millimeter
nick in one of the orbiter's forward facing flight deck windows earlier
Thursday. But the miniscule scuff, located on the outermost layer of a
three-panel thick window, posed no threat to the shuttle or its crew, NASA
said.
Morgan said
that sleeping in space is quite comfortable, but swallowing food was a
challenge at first, primarily because it was odd not having gravity to pull it
down to her stomach, she added.
Morgan taught
at McCall-Donnelly between 1975 and 1998, interrupted only by a one-year stint
to teach in Quito, Ecuador and her call to NASA. The space agency first
selected Morgan in 1985 as the backup for New Hampshire high school teacher
Christa McAuliffe set to fly aboard Challenger during NASA's Teacher in Space
program.
But Morgan
returned to McCall-Donnelly after the 1986 Challenger accident and taught until
1998, when NASA recalled the Idaho schoolteacher to serve as a full-fledged mission
specialist and educator astronaut.
Morgan has
said she hopes to return to teaching at in Idaho once her work as an astronaut
is complete.
NASA is
broadcasting Endeavour's STS-118 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for mission updates and
SPACE.com's NASA TV feed.
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