Runner-Up Teacher to Be Offered Seat on Space Trip

WASHINGTON — The space agency’s teacher-in-space project will continue, and runner-up Barbara Morgan will be offered the first chance to become the first private citizen in space, NASA’s acting administrator announced today.

A date for the next attempt to fly a teacher in space will not be set until investigators determine what caused the explosion of the shuttle Challenger Jan. 28 that killed space teacher Christa McAuliffe and her six crew mates.

But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s acting administrator, William Graham, said that the project will continue and that Morgan has agreed to accept a leadership role.

Morgan, a teacher in McCall, Ida., did not attend the NASA news conference at which Graham and educators spoke, but she said Wednesday in Boise that she still hopes to fly in space.

“I’ve lost a lot of good friends and I feel sad about that, but we’ve got to push on,” she said at a news conference. “There are always tragedies in life.”

Graham was accompanied at the Washington news conference by leaders of the National Education Assn. and the American Federation of Teachers, and they expressed their support for continuing the teacher-in-space program.