PRESS RELEASE
8/8/2007

Remembering Christa McAuliffe and Celebrating the Endeavour mission

Christa McAuliffe Academy and ACHIEVE Online celebrate the remembrance of Christa McAuliffe with the liftoff of the space shuttle Endeavour. Christa's hopes of teaching from space in 1986 aboard the space shuttle Challenger ended tragically with the explosion, killing all six astronauts on board. Her memory and dreams are carried on now through another teacher in space, Barbara Morgan. Barbara was Christa's back-up for the Challenger mission. She was selected as an astronaut in 1998 where she began training for the Endeavour mission that launched into space August 8, 2007. Twenty-one years following the Challenger disaster, we now can celebrate a new opportunity for space exploration and be provided first hand information from a teacher's perspective.

Students and staff here at Christa McAuliffe Academy are actively engaged in carrying on what Christa started: promoting the idea that dreams are worth pursuing; that anything is possible; that, out of tragedy, people rise to greater heights by working together to overcome whatever obstacles are placed in their path; that education is about venturing beyond the normal boundaries and empowering the inner drive for discovery of things unknown.

We salute Christa and we salute Barbara Morgan as fine examples to all of us!