Mission reinforced belief
in manned space exploration for Morgan
By Kevin Kelley
Westshore
Published Oct. 24, 2007

Astronaut Barbara Morgan shares details of her recent space shuttle mission with middle school students at NASA’s Glenn Research Center Oct. 18. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

Barbara Morgan said she has the two best jobs anyone could have — astronaut and teacher.

The backup to Christa McAuliffe, NASA’s Teacher in Space killed while aboard Challenger’s ill-fated January 1986 flight, Morgan assumed the duties of Teacher in Space Designee, speaking to educational organizations throughout the country on behalf of NASA. Although she resumed her teaching career in Idaho, Morgan maintained a relationship with NASA until being named in 1998 as a mission specialist for shuttle flights.

Her opportunity to travel in space finally came two months ago. Morgan served as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavour during a 13-day mission to the International Space Station.

Morgan spoke to 415 area middle school students about her recently completed mission, labeled STS-118 in NASA nomenclature, at the Glenn Research Center Oct. 18.

She spoke with obvious excitement and satisfaction about her successful mission as an astronaut.

“But the very best job in the world is teaching,” Morgan told the students, adding that she misses being with her students. “I also do enjoy the astronaut world, too, and that job. And they’re very, very much alike because in both you get to explore, you get to discover and you get to share.”

“I highly recommend both jobs,” she said.

During Endeavour’s mission, the crew performed four spacewalks. The tasks ranged from installing a new station truss segment and replacing a control moment gyroscope to preparing for missions to come. The crew also delivered about 5,000 pounds of equipment and supplies to the station, and brought about 5,000 pounds of completed experiments, spare parts and trash back.

Morgan explained that a combination of robotics and people are used to assemble the space station. She explained how she operated the shuttle and space station’s robotic arms as part of the process. Frequently, astronauts had to move hardware in places where there was only an inch or two margin to spare, she said.

Good reading skills are very important even in space, Morgan said, as astronauts carried booklets and checklists with them almost all the time, even while in their spacesuits.

Morgan said one of her favorite mission activities involved 10 million basil seed brought to space. The seeds are now being distributed to students to conduct experiments on.

The seeds experiments relate to the future of space exploration and how astronauts will grow food on long-term missions, Morgan explained.

STS-118 Pilot Col. Charlie Hobaugh, who also appeared with Morgan, was asked by a student how his life was changed by going into space.

“The thing you realize in space is that there are no borders, there are no boundaries, there are no differences in people,” Hobaugh said. “You just see the Earth as the Earth. You see the planet as one. You don’t think of divisions, you don’t think of fights.”

Morgan also said one of her favorite things while in space was looking out the window.

“The views of Earth are remarkable,” Morgan said. “I’d never seen anything as black as the blackness of space against the blue Earth.”

Because the shuttle orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, astronauts see a sunrise and sunset every 45 minutes.

“When the sun first starts coming up, the first thing you see in the darkness is this really thin blue line,” Morgan said. “And then it grows and grows and grows. And instead of the blue line getting thicker, you see layers of blue. And I’ve never seen that many colors of blue layered like that.”

Morgan said during a brief interview with West Life that her mission reaffirmed for her the importance of human spaceflight.

“When you look at the Earth and you’re both doing hard work and enjoying the spaceflight experience,” Morgan said, “the thing that popped into my mind several times, many times, was ‘This is the right thing for human beings to be doing. Space exploration is a human endeavor.’”

One student asked Morgan if she was afraid given the fact that the first teacher in space died in the Challenger disaster.

“I trained with Christa McAuliffe, and I was there when that shuttle accident happened. And it was a horrible, horrible, horrible thing,” Morgan replied.

“I knew that kids all over the world were watching adults to see what adults do and how they act and what they do in a bad situation,” Morgan said. “And I wanted to make sure that kids, like you, saw adults doing the right thing, which is figure out what we did wrong, figure out what went wrong, work hard to try and fix it, and keep the future open for all of you guys.”

The extensive astronaut training and preparations gave her confidence, she said.

“Even though there is a risk involved, to me it was a risk worth taking,” she said. “It wasn’t a foolish risk. It was keeping the future open.”

In the end, while on the launch pad, she wasn’t afraid, she said.

“The thought that was going through my mind was ‘We are going into space!’”

On the Net:

• NASA Glenn Research Center
• STS-118 Endeavour mission page