Twenty-five years ago today, Concord, New Hampshire, was abuzz with excitement as teacher Christa McAuliffe was about to make history.
It may be one small step for civilian space travel, but it's a leap for education.
Three weeks after returning to Earth, teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan cheerfully carried out her first space education assignment Monday, sharing the magic of flying in orbit with children at Walt Disney World.
Adapting to weightlessness was hard. Readapting to gravity was even tougher for teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan.
No tile repair for shuttle
The two pilots who will guide shuttle Endeavour back to Earth next week said Friday they are "absolutely 100 percent" behind NASA's decision to skip repairs to the deep gouge on their spaceship's belly.
Their mission cut short by Hurricane Dean, astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour wrapped up their work in orbit Monday and prepared to come home.
Endeavour's astronauts ran through never-before-attempted repair methods Thursday in case they had to go out and patch a deep gouge in the space shuttle's belly
Viewpoint: More than 20 years after the Christa McAuliffe tragedy, educator Barbara Morgan is on her way to the Space Station. But it's NASA that still hasn't learned its lesson
After Endeavour launched into the clear blue sky and reached orbit with teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan aboard, Mission Control announced that class was in session.
Space shuttle Endeavour lifted off into the blue skies above Florida on Wednesday, its seven-member crew headed for the international space station to perform assembly work, repairs and deliver supplies.
They met as part of a NASA program to recognize their under-appreciated profession. They bonded in grief when Christa McAuliffe, the first Teacher in Space, perished with six colleagues in the Challenger explosion in 1986. This week, they are together again.
Anoush Ansari may have become the first female space tourist on Monday, but she is only the latest in a lengthy list of female pioneers to blaze a trail across the stars -- and that doesn't just mean Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhuru or Star Wars' Princess Leia.
In 1986, Grace Corrigan watched along with the rest of the stricken nation as the space shuttle Challenger, carrying her daughter, Christa McAuliffe, and six other crew members, exploded in the blue skies over Cape Canaveral, Florida. Today, Corrigan keeps her daughter's dream of being the first teacher in space alive through her work at the McAuliffe Center.
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