---
title: "Teacher in Space Project"
chunk: 1/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher_in_Space_Project"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:21:53.570409+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The Teacher in Space Project (TISP) was a NASA program announced by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1984 designed to inspire students, honor teachers, and spur interest in mathematics, science, and space exploration. The project would carry teachers into space as payload specialists (non-astronaut civilians), who would return to their classrooms to share the experience with their students.
NASA cancelled the program in 1990, following the death of its first participant, Christa McAuliffe, in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (STS-51-L) on January 28, 1986. NASA replaced Teachers in Space in 1998 with the Educator Astronaut Project, which required its participants to become astronaut Mission Specialists. The first Educator Astronauts were selected as part of NASA Astronaut Group 19 in 2004.
Barbara Morgan, who was selected as a mission specialist as part of NASA Astronaut Group 17 in 1998, has often been incorrectly referred to as an Educator Astronaut. However, she was selected as a mission specialist before the Educator Astronaut Project.

== NASA programs ==
TISP was announced by President Ronald Reagan on August 27, 1984, during a speech on education policy in Washington, D.C. Rather than being inducted as members of NASA's Astronaut Corps, the teachers would fly as Payload Specialists and return to their classrooms after flight. This was the first time that NASA would send any "citizen passengers" into space, which had been a goal of the Space Shuttle program from the beginning. The program was part of the Reagan administration's response to the education reform movement and to the 1983 A Nation at Risk report which found that public education in the United States was inadequate. While many teachers expressed excitement about the announcement, the National Education Association, the largest teachers' union in the U.S., criticized the program as a gimmick. NEA president Mary Hatwood Futrell said, "We don't need to send a teacher into space. We need to send teachers into well-equipped classrooms."
More than 40,000 applications were mailed to interested teachers while 11,000 teachers sent completed applications to NASA, including an essay on why they wanted to go to space and a proposal for a lesson that they would teach while on the Space Shuttle. Each of the applications was sent to the public Department of Education of that teacher's state. The state education agencies of each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as three federal agencies – the Department of Defense Dependents Schools, the State Department Office of Overseas Schools, and the Office of Indian Education Programs – were each responsible for selecting two nominees for national consideration before a deadline of May 1, 1985. These 114 nominees were invited to a summit in Washington, D.C., from June 22–27, 1985, where they were further evaluated by a panel of 20 judges, which included university president Richard Berendzen, actress Pam Dawber, athlete Wes Unseld, and artificial heart inventor Dr. Robert Jarvik. William Pierce, president of the Council of Chief State School Officers, who headed the panel, said that the teachers were evaluated based on their essays, their medical fitness, and whether the judges would "like to see this person on the cover of Time and on the Today Show". NASA administrator James M. Beggs announced the selection of 10 finalists on July 1, 1985.
The finalists were brought to the Johnson Space Center in Houston and Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, for further medical examination and preliminary astronaut training. While the teachers were riding Space Camp's "Lunar Odyssey" simulator ride, Space Camp employee Gregory Walker fell into the ride's machinery and was killed, emotionally affecting the candidates who had witnessed the accident. After the two-week session, the judging panel unanimously selected S. Christa McAuliffe, a high school social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, as the first teacher astronaut. She planned to teach two 15-minute lessons from the Space Shuttle, which would have been nationally televised. Barbara Morgan, an elementary school teacher from McCall, Idaho, was selected as her backup. The other eight finalists continued to work for NASA for one year instead of returning to their classrooms.
McAuliffe died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986, along with the other six crew members of STS-51-L. After the accident, Reagan spoke on national television and assured the nation that the Teacher in Space program would continue. "We'll continue our quest in space", he said. "There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue." However, NASA decided in 1990 that spaceflight was still too dangerous to risk the lives of civilian teachers, and eliminated the Teacher in Space project. Morgan returned to teaching in Idaho and later became a mission specialist on STS-118.

=== Educator Astronaut Project ===

In January 1998, NASA replaced the Teacher In Space project with the Educator Astronaut Project. Instead of training teachers for five months as Payload Specialists who would return to the classroom, the Educator Astronaut program required selectees to give up their teaching careers, move to Houston, and become Mission Specialists (full-time NASA astronauts).
The first three Educator Astronauts were selected in October 2004: Joseph Acaba, Richard Arnold and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger. Acaba and Arnold flew aboard STS-119 in March 2009, and Metcalf-Lindenburger on STS-131 in April 2010.
Although many sources including some NASA ones incorrectly refer to Barbara Morgan (who flew on STS-118 in August 2007) as the first Educator Astronaut, she was actually selected as a standard mission specialist in 1998, before the Educator Astronaut Project was in place.