Teachers, be a part-time astronaut!

In 1984, President Regan announced the Teacher in Space Project to put a teacher in space to inpsire students to pursue interests in math and science.  Out of over 11,000 applicants, NASA selected two candidates for opportunity: Christa McAuliffe and Barbara Morgan.  Christa McAuliffe was supposed to be the first teacher in space on the 1986 STS-51-L Challenger mission, but unfortunately disaster struck.  Morgan was later selected as a NASA astronaut mission specialist and flew in space on STS-118 in 2007.  Her primary duty on that mission was operating the robotic arm to help add the S5 truss to the ISS, but she did spend about six hours teaching students from space.



In 2003, NASA announced the Educator Astronaut Project, which was similar to the previous Teachers in Space Project except that astronauts would undergo full training as mission specialists in addition to their teaching responsibilities.  Joseph Acaba, Richard Arnold and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger were selected as the first Mission Specialist Educators in the 2004.

Now, a new teacher astronaut program has been announced.  The Teachers in Space Program will allow teachers to train on weekends and summers so they can keep their day jobs as teachers.  The idea is to have a pool of teacher astronauts trained by the time the first commercial space vehicles start operating in a few years.  The program is jointly sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation and United States Rocket Academy.  Applications for the first two "Pathfinder' astronauts are due December 4, 2008.

Comments

Oberon said…
.....youtube....john lenard walson....look through his telescope.
23 September, 2008 13:55
BrianShiro said…
Oberon, what does your suggestion have to do with the Teachers in Space program?
23 September, 2008 14:17
Anonymous said…
Barbara Morgan taught several lessons from space. She did downlinks to students on Earth, and conducted a shortwave student session, in addition to performing all of her Mission Specialist duties. Go to YouTube and type in "Barbara Morgan." You'll see.
24 September, 2008 04:50
BrianShiro said…
Anonymous commenter, thanks for the correction. I've updated the last sentence of the first paragraph accordingly.
24 September, 2008 07:38
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Insider tips on NASA's astronaut selection

Image
While NASA wraps up interviewing the second group of finalists to determine its 2013 class of ASCANs, the head of the NASA Astronaut Selection Office Duane Ross gave an illuminating presentation at JSC last Thursday about the selection process.  He covered questions ranging from academic degrees to interview questions, medical screening, and Russian language requirements. Pete Dimmick was among those present in the audience. Here are his notes from the event, reprinted with permission: Today I attended a lecture by Duane Ross and his protege, Anne Roemer. Duane has been the head of the astronaut selection process for 37 years and I had a few minutes to speak with them after the lecture was over. Here is what I found out about becoming an astronaut. I won't discuss so much the published requirements, rather I'll be focusing more on the insider things. There have been 257 NASA astronauts over the years and an applicant has a 0.6% chance of being selected. Of those no
READ MORE >>

NASA selection begins!

Image
NASA opened the 2015-16 astronaut selection opportunity on USAJOBS . Applications are due February 18, and details are on astronauts.nasa.gov . Good luck to all who apply! I wrote an article called " The Astronaut Hopeful's Manifesto: An Applicant's Guide " on Forbes with some advice to applicants. Check it out!
READ MORE >>

Interesting Astronaut Statistics

Image
In my continuing quest to become an astronaut, I wanted to figure out what the "typical" astronaut's background is like, so I mined the NASA astronaut bios for information. I was interested in the educational, military, selection age, and spaceflight histories of the astronauts, so I focused on that information. I think the plots below speak for themselves, but if you'd like the raw data or have questions, please feel free to ask. Note that I only compiled information on NASA's 126 active and management astronauts. I didn't include the Payload Specialists, former, or international astronauts, although I might go back later and add them to the analysis. I learned that only 36% of astronauts have earned doctorate degrees, but most of the astronauts selected with only a masters or bachelors had extensive NASA and/or military experience. The typical astronaut has one bachelors and one masters degree, although some do have more than one of either type of de
READ MORE >>