SPACE.com -- NASA Deadline Looms for Educator Astronaut Hopefuls

Barbara Morgan, Educator Mission Specialist.

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	NASA Deadline Looms for Educator Astronaut Hopefuls By SPACE.com staff posted: 07:00 am ET 24 April 2003

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Teachers looking to broaden their horizons have just one week left to apply to NASA's Educator Astronaut Program.

The deadline for instructor applications and nominations is April 30 when the space agency will begin the daunting task of choosing a handful of teachers from the thousands that have already been nominated.

Since NASA put out the call for new educator astronauts in January, the agency has received almost 8,000 nominations for at most six educator astronaut positions.

The Educator Astronaut program is a revamped version of NASA's Teacher in Space effort of the 1980s to encourage student interest in space and the sciences. Instead of taking one ride into space and teaching about it later, however, educator astronauts will become full-fledged members of NASA's astronaut corps. They will live in Houston, Texas and train for missions, NASA officials said.

Selected astronauts will join NASA's first educator astronaut Barbara Morgan, a former Idaho schoolteacher originally scheduled to fly to the International Space Station in November. Her mission has been pushed back pending the outcome of the Columbia accident investigation.

Morgan trained alongside Christa McAuliffe during NASA's Teacher in Space program, eventually serving as McAuliffe's back-up. McAuliffe, a New Hampshire teacher, was selected to be NASA's first teacher in space, but died with her six crewmates aboard Challenger when the shuttle exploded just after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986.

Morgan returned to NASA in 1998 to be the first official member of the Educator Astronaut program and is assigned to the STS-118 mission.

To apply, teachers must be certified K through 12 educator with at least three years of classroom teaching experience. A Bachelor's Degree in Education, Physical Science, Biological Science or Mathematics, as are studies in one of the above subjects. Full requirements and the application form are available online at the Educator Astronaut website.