Cape Canaveral, Fla. – Astronaut Barbara Morgan transformed the space shuttle and international space station into a classroom Tuesday for her first education session from orbit, fulfilling the legacy of Christa McAuliffe with joy and also some sadness.
“I’ve thought about Christa and the Challenger crew just about every day since 20-plus years ago,” Morgan said in a series of interviews right before class got underway. “I hope that they know that they are here with us in our hearts.”
Morgan, 55, who was McAuliffe’s backup for the doomed 1986 flight, got her first opportunity to talk with schoolchildren late Tuesday afternoon.
Hundreds of youngsters jammed the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise, less than 100 miles from the elementary school where Morgan taught before becoming an astronaut. One child wanted to know about exercising in space. In response, Morgan lifted the two large men floating alongside her, one in each hand, and pretended to be straining. Another youngster wanted to see a demonstration of drinking in space. Morgan and her colleagues obliged by squeezing bubbles from a straw in a drink pouch and swallowing the floating red blobs. The four astronauts also used pingpong balls and a softball for props.
Afterward, 12-year-old Paige Dashiell said, “It’s not every day you talk to someone in space.” Paige asked what stars look like from space. The answer: Stars don’t twinkle since there’s no atmosphere to distort the light.
Morgan was asked how being a teacher compared with being an astronaut.
“Astronauts and teachers actually do the same thing,” she answered. “We explore, we discover and we share. And the great thing about being a teacher is you get to do that with students, and the great thing about being an astronaut is you get to do it in space.”
The 25-minute question-and- answer session was a welcome diversion for NASA, which found itself trying to explain – again – why foam insulation was still falling off shuttle fuel tanks more than four years after the Columbia disaster.
