CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Rookie astronaut Barbara Morgan has yet to be assigned to a flight crew, but the recent promise from NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe that she will fly in 2004 has once again made her the most famous teacher in the nation.
The backup Teacher-in-Space to Christa McAuliffe, who died in the 1986 Challenger disaster, Morgan left her Idaho classroom in 1998 for the Johnson Space Center in Houston to become a full-time astronaut.
Morgan immersed herself in training and quietly pursued her dream until April when O'Keefe laid out his plans for NASA which included an emphasis on education as a primary mission for the space agency. O'Keefe also announced the addition of a new category of astronaut called the Educator Mission Specialist. Morgan was thrust into the spotlight.
Morgan is now among the astronauts receiving the most requests for media interviews and personal appearances, all of which she attempts to honor, squeezing them in between learning shuttle and station systems, as well as serving as a CAPCOM for an upcoming station assembly mission.
"I don't see myself as a celebrity and never will. That's not what this is all about," Morgan said during a recent interview.
What this is all about, according to Morgan, is putting a focus on education, and doing it in a way that demonstrates NASA's long term commitment to the goal.
"One of the areas where we lack is having good role models," said Albert Koller, executive director of aerospace technology programs at Brevard Community College, which has several campuses along Florida's Space Coast. "Barbara Morgan provides that good role model, cast in a very exciting venue when you put teachers in space."
So Morgan will fly some time in 2004, becoming the first of what is expected to be several new teachers who are to be selected during the coming months and then trained as full time astronauts.
Details of the selection process and the criteria NASA will use is still being ironed out by the agency's education program managers, said Bob Jacobs, a NASA spokesman in Washington, D.C.
"Since the Administrator's announcement in April," says Jacobs, "the agency's Education Enterprise has been working with the Department of Education to identify selection criteria and the mechanism necessary to bring teachers and other qualified individuals into the astronaut corps as an Educator Mission Specialist."
As soon as the details are ironed out and announced NASA should expect to be swamped with applications.
"I think there will be a mob scene for people who are delighted for a chance to even be considered for such a prestigious and challenging assignment as that one," Koller said. "I'm delighted this is happening. If you look across the country right now you can see we have sort of a crisis emerging in math and science areas, where American students simply aren't stepping up to bat."
Koller's comments are supported by this year's National Science Foundation survey that found weakness in some levels of scientific education and noted that the United States continues to depend heavily on foreign-born scientists.
The report also stated that 70 percent of American adults do not understand the scientific process, many believe in mysterious psychic powers and others may be quick to accept phony science reports.
Morgan dodged a question about the report's conclusions.
"You're always looking for ways on how to make things better and how to improve and push the learning process," Morgan said. "We've got some great teaching and great students and great education going on. I think we're on the right track here."
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