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Sharon Christa McAuliffe was an American teacher and was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.
She received her bachelor's degree in education and history from Framingham State College in 1970, and also a master's in education supervision and administration from Bowie State University in 1978. She took a teaching position as a social studies teacher at Concord High School in New Hampshire after that.
In 1985, she was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Project and was scheduled to become the first teacher in space.
As a member of mission STS-51-L, she was planning to conduct experiments and teach lessons from the Challenger.
She was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and took interest in space exploration when she was young. She took notice of Project Mercury and the Apollo moon landing program. The day after John Glenn orbited the Earth in Friendship 7, she told a friend in high school, "Do you realize that someday people will be going to the Moon? Maybe even taking a bus, and I want to do that,” according to a biography written about her.
She wrote years later on her NASA application form: "I watched the Space Age being born, and I would like to participate."
In 1970, she started as an American history teacher at Benjamin Foulois Junior High School in Morningside, Maryland. Then from 1971 to 1978, she taught history and civics at Thomas Johnson Middle School in Lanham, Maryland. In addition to teaching, she completed a Master of Arts in education supervision and administration from Bowie State University in Maryland.
In 1978, she moved to Concord, New Hampshire, when her husband accepted a job as an assistant to the New Hampshire Attorney General. She taught American history and English to middle schoolers when they first moved there, before taking her job at Concord High.
She was a social studies teacher, and taught several courses including American history, law, and economics, in addition to a self-designed course: "The American Woman.” She focused on taking field trips and bringing in knowledgeable guest speakers, as well as classroom learning.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced the Teacher in Space Project, and McAuliffe learned about NASA's efforts to find the first civilian, an educator, to fly into space. NASA wanted to find an "ordinary person," a gifted teacher who could communicate with students while in orbit. NASA officials thought sending a civilian into space would cause public interest in space exploration to increase. President Reagan also thought it was crucial to remind Americans about the importance of educators.
She applied to the contest and was chosen as a finalist out of 11,000 applicants. After an interview process with NASA officials among the 10 finalists, she was chosen. An announcement about her journey was made by then-Vice President George H.W. Bush.
She took a leave of absence from teaching and got to work on what she’d teach in space. She had planned to conduct included basic science experiments in the fields of chromatography, hydroponics, magnetism, and Newton's laws. She also planned on showing a tour of the spacecraft, which would have been broadcast to millions of schoolchildren on television.
On January 28, 1986 she boarded the Challenger with the rest of the crew. Just 73 seconds into flight the shuttle fell apart, resulting in the deaths of everyone on board. Extensive research was done after to determine the cause of the accident. Later, it was determined that the accident was due to a failure of rubber O-rings made by Morton-Thiokol that provided a pressure seal in the aft field joint of the shuttle's right Solid Rocket Booster. The failure was determined to be a design flaw.
After her death, schools and scholarships were named in her honor, and in 2004 she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
McAuliffe’s life was one that held much promise but was tragically cut short. Her legacy is strong, like all the others aboard the Challenger. To put it simply, when asked about her impending journey to space on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, she said:
"If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat. Just get on."
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/christa-mcauliffe-first-teacher-in-space-continues-to-inspire/
https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/mcauliffe.html
http://www.biography.com/people/christa-mcauliffe-9390406
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