A quarter century ago, NASA's plan to send the first teacher to space was thwarted when Christa McAuliffe and her six crewmates were killed when the space shuttle Challenger was destroyed just after liftoff. McAuliffe's backup, Barbara Morgan, later became the first educator astronaut to reach orbit when she flew on the STS-118 flight of the shuttle Endeavour in August 2007.
Morgan left the astronaut corps in 2008 to become a Distinguished Educator in Residence at Idaho's Boise State University.
SPACE.com spoke to Morgan about the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Challenger tragedy, and her work to carry on McAuliffe's mission. Here are her thoughts on the loss of Challenger and its crew:
Barbara Morgan: The Challenger crew was doing something wonderful for all of us, and it has to do with education and it has to do with opening doors for our young people and for all of us for the future. What I'm really proud of is all the great work that the Challenger families and many people all over the country and beyond do to carry on the mission of the Challenger crew. [Gallery - Remembering Challenger: NASA's 1st Shuttle Tragedy ]
There's so much that people are doing to carry forward the mission of the Challenger crew. Including all of our teachers who, some are in risky situations, go into that classroom every day to work with children, and they believe in the kids and believe that they have a bright future and are there to help them get there.
One particular program I wanted to mention is the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, and the tremendous work that they're doing that really provides a wonderful opportunity for our young people to experience the joy of working in a team and exploring and discovering together and engaging in our wonderful world of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
I'm proud of what they're doing.
Christa's saying was, "I touch the future, I teach."
We had so many students after that wanting to be teachers, it was phenomenal, it was beautiful. And students and others who really sat up and thought, "What is it that I want to do in my future, and I have the capability to do it."
Morgan: If we put our head in the sand and don't accept any risk at all, we're not going anywhere.
We can never predict the future, but we can help shape the future. And if we want that future to be bright and open-ended and be one of lifelong learning, we've got to keep reaching for the stars.
There is so much that we don't know, and space and space exploration just provides so much. It truly motivates our young people and it’s exploration, it's discovery, it's experimentation — it's all those things that make humans, humans. And it's all the things that help us gain more knowledge and help make the world a better place.
And it's also important that we show our young people that there are risks that should be taken.
As teachers, we're always working with children in our class to risk trying something that they may fail at. To risk offering an opinion or a new idea, to risk asking a question, even though a lot of people are embarrassed to ask questions to show that they might not know something. Those are really important risks. And people need to see adults taking risks for the right reasons.
Morgan: Yes. Because education is so important. Just like exploration. And you know they are very much the same. It's about learning, it's about exploring, it's about discovering, it's about sharing, and building a future. You do it with both.
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