Sometimes progress is so strong that we forget to note the milestones.
I’m remembering Christa McAuliffe today.
Tomorrow, April 14, Mission Specialists Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is scheduled to talk with students at Eastern Guilford High School in North Carolina, and all of the 71,000 students in Eastern Guilford School District.
Caption from NASA: STS-131 Mission Specialist Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, attired in a training version of her shuttle launch and entry suit, poses for a photo prior to the start of an ingress/egress training session in the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Photo Credit: NASA
Metcalf-Lindenburger is one of three teachers selected in 2004 as astronauts. NASA is committed to help education out. After the Challenger disaster, and the death of “teacher in space” Christa McAuliffe, NASA finally determined to make teachers into astronauts rather than fly “civilians.”
Bittersweet, but there it is.
Stephanie Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-4997
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.govJenna Maddix
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-244-0185
jenna.c.maddix@nasa.govHaley Miller
Guilford Public Schools, Guilford, N.C.
336-370-3200
millerh3@gcsnc.comApril 12, 2010MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-048
Orbiting Space Shuttle Astronauts — Including Former Teacher — Call North Carolina Students
WASHINGTON — Astronauts orbiting 220 miles above Earth will speak with students in Gibsonville, N.C., on Wednesday, April 14. The call with the students and space shuttle Commander Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson and Clay Anderson will take place at 1:06 p.m. EDT at Eastern Guilford High School in Gibsonville.
Eastern Guilford High School is hosting students from Eastern Guilford Middle School, Gibsonville Elementary, McLeansville Elementary, Rankin Elementary and Sedalia Elementary for the downlink. The school also will broadcast the event to the entire Guilford County Schools district, which serves more than 71,000 students.
The astronauts launched Monday, April 5, aboard space shuttle Discovery from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During the 13-day mission to the International Space Station, the crew will deliver science experiments and supplies; take three spacewalks to switch out a gyroscope on the station’s truss, or backbone; install a spare ammonia storage tank and return a used one; and retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station’s exterior.
Metcalf-Lindenburger is one of three teachers selected to fly as shuttle mission specialists in the 2004 Educator Astronaut Class. She operates the shuttle’s robotic arm. Without robotics, major accomplishments like building the station, repairing satellites in space and exploring other worlds would not be possible.
Students have been preparing for the downlink by conducting NASA engineering design challenges and implementing agency robotics resources and activities into K-12 classrooms. A science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, club was organized to increase participation and interest, particularly by female students.
The school’s guidance department also is collaborating with local universities to help students investigate and explore STEM opportunities beyond graduation. During follow up in-district workshops in April and May, a NASA Aerospace Education Services Program specialist will demonstrate how to access and use NASA resources in K-12 curricula.
Eastern Guilford High School employee Michael Woods, a former Aerospace Education Services Project specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., is leading the downlink effort. In December 2009, NASA awarded Guilford County Schools a two-year grant of nearly $1 million to help middle and high school teachers develop science lessons using the space agency’s content.
The event is part of a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The in-orbit call is part of Teaching From Space, a NASA project that uses the unique environment of human spaceflight to promote learning opportunities and build partnerships with the kindergarten through 12th grade education community.
NASA Television will air video of the astronauts during the downlink. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:
Even Bob Park will pipe down for a day for this (though he’s right, you know).
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] Remembering Christa McAuliffe: Teacher talks with North Carolina school kids, from space « Mil… […]
LikeLike
Thanks for posting this. The explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, and the death of “teacher in space” Christa McAuliffe, hit me hard. I’d always been a fan of the space program (my father was an aeronautical engineer) and remembered fondly going to the cafetoria while in grade school to watch the lift-offs of the early space program on a tiny television. I stayed up to watch man first walk on the moon.
Like with everything, the space shuttle liftoffs were starting to be routine, and I almost stopped being aware of them anymore, taking them for granted. They were smooth sailing! But the teacher in space mission attracted my attention more than most, which I’m sure was part of the point. The week of the Challenger flight, I was hugely pregnant and more than a week overdue, feeling very vulnerable. My husband was sick. Then the Challenger exploded. I felt the loss very keenly.
My father worked for Boeing and later was involved somewhat with the space station. Some years after the Challenger disaster, we visited the Huntsville, Alabama, facility where the astronauts trained. We listened as the Huntsville mission control interacted with the astronauts on the shuttle, which was orbiting the earth. It was thrilling.
I’m sorry that the space program is being cut back. It seems a terrible loss to me.
Did you read about the Monarchs (Butterflies) in Space program? The caterpillars were launched in November 2009 on the shuttle and then went through their life cycle on the space station. http://monarchwatch.org/space/
LikeLike