Welcome Home Barbara Morgan; More Teachers Should Fly

Aug. 21, 2007 - PRLog -- Kennedy Space Center, Florida - As the Space Shuttle Endeavour
touched down with Educator Astronaut Barbara Morgan on board,
Teachers in Space project leaders called for NASA to announce flight
dates for the three remaining Educator Astronauts.

"NASA has taken the first step toward keeping the commitment it made
to education more than 20 years ago, but it's only the first step,"
said Teachers in Space project manager Edward Wright. "We call on
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin to immediately announce flight dates
for the next three Educator Astronauts -- Joe Acaba, Ricky Arnold and
Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger."

Teachers in Space was a NASA project in the 1980's, but NASA
discontinued the effort after the Challenger accident that claimed
the life of teacher Christa McAuliffe in 1986. Teachers in Space has
been revived as a private nonprofit project by the Space Frontier
Foundation and the United States Rocket Academy. Instead of flying
teachers aboard the Shuttle, the new Teachers in Space program will
use suborbital passenger vehicles now under development by commercial
companies.

"The Educator Astronaut program is taking teachers out of the
classroom to join the NASA astronaut corps," Wright said. "Our goal
is to put astronaut teachers into American classrooms."

Space Frontier Foundation chairman Bob Werb believes NASA still has a
role to play as well. "We call on NASA to fly the three remaining
Educator Astronauts as soon as possible and to give them more time to
teach lessons from space. After flying, they should return to the
classroom, alongside the astronaut teachers we will be creating."

Teachers in Space is preparing to begin the process of selecting the
first of many teachers who will fly in space on suborbital vehicles.
The start of the selection process will be officially announced at
the X Prize Cup, a public spaceflight show at Holloman Air Force
Base, New Mexico on October 26-28.

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The Space Frontier Foundation is an organization of people dedicated
to opening the Space Frontier to human settlement as rapidly as
possible. Our goals include protecting the Earth's fragile biosphere
and creating a freer and more prosperous life for each generation by
using the unlimited energy and material resources of space.

The United States Rocket Academy is a non-profit educational
institution founded to provide spaceflight training to meet the needs
of the commercial, military and scientific sectors.

Website: space-frontier.org