you
communicating the space experience
sending someone into Earth orbit who
could tell us what its life in our own
terms has long been a NASA goal and in
August 1984 the spaceflight participant
program was given the greenlight
by President Reagan today I'm directing
NASA to begin a search in all of our
elementary and secondary schools and to
choose as the first citizen passenger in
the history of our space program one of
America's finest a teacher last June the
semi-finalists in NASA's teacher and
space project met the press for the
first time in Washington DC the 114
educators selected from over 11,000
applicants
spent a week in the nation's capital
becoming familiar with the history of
space travels and of course taking notes
in workshops dealing with various
aspects of shuttle flight get it red-hot
the next major milestone came in early
July when the ten finalists were
announced these teachers had survived an
extensive screening process but they had
to demonstrate even more rike stuff
during their two-week stay at the
Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas
after a series of tests to ensure that
they were medically fit to fly aboard
the shuttle the ten were given a ride on
the kc-135 a hollowed-out had inject
that simulates weightlessness for short
periods of time
but finally on July 19 cops I squash
they then destroy dating back
congratulations and they have a letter e
school teacher from Ohio just selected
as the back-up plan today and pushed
them across Journal a high school social
studies teacher she's the one who
actually try this place it's it's not
often that a teacher is at a loss for
words I know my students wouldn't think
so I've made nine wonderful friends over
the last two weeks when that shuttle
goes they might do one body but there's
gonna be 10 souls that I'm doing with me
Thank You c'n see everything selection
water training in beauty I've been a lot
to lunch but they show rookie
during the shuttle flight in addition to
keeping a journal
mrs. McAuliffe will seek to live lessons
from stage one called the ultimate seeds
and the other
no a number other expensive oddly zoned
for classroom use after the majority for
gold
I would like to humanize the space age
by giving a perspective from a non
astronaut because I think the students
will look at that and say this is an
ordinary person this ordinary person is
contributing to history and if they can
make that connection then they're going
to get excited about history they're
going to get excited about the future
they're going to get excited about space
while Christa prepares for life goes on
understandably things at the McCallum
house have change for example there's
now a notice missing throws on the
freezer to the microwave but husband
Evan Turner daughter Caroline and son
Scott took it on there as
responsibilities without reservation you
know you're talking about a human being
being free of the bonds of gravity
orbiting the Earth or many human beings
have done that and I so I think both of
us feel that whatever the price in terms
of readjustments are my taking on things
that I probably should have been doing
before anyway and hadn't done whatever
those prices are they certainly pale in
comparison to the opportunity
and because even though mrs. McAuliffe
was a great economics teacher I think
what I learned most from her was outside
the classroom she taught me that the
little person counts in that anyone can
make an effect on our society and on the
world she proved that by being the first
private citizen in space and being the
first teacher in space and I think she's
a tribute to her profession and we're
all very proud of her I mean the whole
thing is so gorgeous you just want to
bring it all back to the classroom for
the kids