Space-Bound Teacher Vows To Complete Mission Started By Predecessor
Posted August 8, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Her name is Barbara Morgan and she’s convinced history won’t repeat itself. The 55-year-old school teacher from Iowa made history on Wednesday, becoming the first teacher to reach outer space when the shuttle took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 6:36pm. And her role isn’t without tinges of irony. Morgan was the official back-up educator to Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who lost her life in the 1986 Challenger disaster, after the craft blew up about a minute after lift-off.
Morgan was in the stands that day and remembers the horror and the tears. She sat in the same seat position her late predecessor occupied on that ill-fated flight, but this time on the Endeavour, as it began a two-week trip to the International Space Station (take an online tour of it here). And she’s aware that the world will be watching and remembering. “I think the great thing about it is that people will be thinking about Challenger and thinking about all the hard work lots of folks over many years have done to continue their mission,” she agrees. She calls her flight a continuation of McAuliffe’s aborted journey not a completion. And she vows to do her former colleague proud.
It’s not Morgan’s first brush with a tragic past. She was in a training aircraft awaiting the arrival of the space shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003, when the ship exploded over Texas. But she refuses to let the dark past dampen an exciting future. “That’s what defines teachers is perseverance and patience,” she explains about her long wait to reach the great beyond.
Morgan’s trip has a Canadian connection in more ways than one. She’s on board with Dave Williams, a veteran space expert who hails from Saskatoon. And one of her main tasks will be to operate the Canadarm, the famous robot reacher that will help load cargo from one ship to another. The mother of two will also be spending at least six hours doing what she does best – teaching. Morgan is scheduled to talk to students on the ground from her lofty perch in space before the two week mission ends.
