Part of
The Challenger crew who died during her mission, and the first teacher to fly in space. Chosen from over 11,000 teachers who applied for the chance to join the astronaut ranks. She was born on
September 2, 1948. When she was young she was entraced by the
Apollo moon landing program, and wrote years later on her
astronaut application form that
"I watched the Space Age being born and I would like to participate."
NASA picked McAuliffe in the summer of
1984 and in the fall she took a year-long leave of absence from teaching, during which time NASA trained her for an early 1986 Shuttle mission. She was very popular with the media, and the
teacher in space program received
a lot of attention because of this. It is partly because of the excitement over McAuliffe's presence on
the Challenger that the
accident had such a significant
impact on the nation.