signify America's high regard for teaching and schooling. And what was the teacher's actual mission inspace? Ostensibly too televise "lessons" on days four and five of " the ultimate field trip.".Unknown to Christa McAuliffe, however, the real mission was aiding President Reagan's reelection. Ateacher in Challenger was the cheapest way of making the incumbent President look like a supporter of teachers and schooling even though he had set out to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and wasmaking drastic cuts in the Federal education budget.In 1984 when the decision was made to launch a Teacher-in-Space, the Reagan-Bush re-electioncampaign was already underway. Reagan-Bush was known to be vulnerable to Mondale-Ferraro on severalissues. One of the most important was education. Mondale effectively highlighted Reagan's "second-rateleadership" that produced "an appalling record" of "educational neglect." His campaign issued a "reportcard" on Reagan educational policy that gave the President "F's" in everything but dramatics and sports.Shortly after Mondale launched this offensive a Gallup Poll revealed that a large majority of Americans thought Mondale more likely than President Reagan to improve public schooling. This proMondale trend concerned Reagan campaign officials. They felt the President needed to recapture at leastsome of the "education vote?" To do so they planned a limited counter offensive. It was launched on August27, 1984. While speaking at a District of Columbia junior high school, the President first announced severalnew members of his Advisory Council on Education. That was a warm-up. Then he proudly told the worldwho America's first passenger in space would be. "Today" the President said" I'm directing NASA to begina search in all of our elementary and secondary schools and choose as the first citizen passenger in thehistory of our space program one of America's finest -- a teacher. One year later Christa McCauliffe wasselected from over 11,000 applicants.NASA's professional astronauts were uncomfortable with political passengers such as ChristaMcAuliffe. Astronaut Judy Resnick, who was to perish with McCauliffe, once privately asked a friend,"What are we going to
do
with these people?" But it turned out that Christa McAuliffe was not a problemlike some previous passengers had been. (One reportedly had to be restrained prior to lift-off.) She was veryprofessional in her commitment and trained hard for the mission.But how well she trained was not what really mattered. What mattered was how her presence, and herNational Education Association membership (the NEA had endorsed Mondale), could be exploited by theReagan White HouseIn fairness, White House staffers had scant reason to think their political agenda would kill ChristaMcAuliffe. They knew space flight was risky; but NASA was famous for its "fail safe" flight standards.What White House officials did not know, however, was that the same motivation that led key NASAofficials to accept blatant political orchestration of crew assignments had also caused them to make fatallywrong decisions concerning Challenger's launch. In fact, one reason for NASA officials going ahead onJanuary 28th in spite of dangerously cold temperatures and ice build up on the launch structure was to getthe space craft in orbit in time for the President's State of the Union Message that very evening."When the shuttle lifts off," President Reagan said as he announced the Teacher-In-Space project, "allof America will be reminded of the crucial role that teachers and education play in the life of our nation. Ican't think of a better lesson for our children and our country." But when the shuttle exploded, I wasreminded of the short shrift teachers and education have often gotten in the life of our nation. Had ChristaMcAulliffe died in a a genuine effort to highlight the importance of teaching and schooling it would havebeen different. But the whole Teacher-in-Space effort was just bad faith public relations -- eyewash for anadministration that had gotten itself into political hot water by giving nothing but empty platitudes andslashed federal budgets to teachers for four long years.
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