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NASA Thaws Out 'Teacher in Space' Program
Guppy06 writes "The Houston Chronicle reports that, seventeen years after the Challenger disaster, NASA is pushing forward its Teacher in Space program again. Christa McAuliffe's original back-up, Barbara Morgan from Idaho, is scheduled to go up this November. NASA intends to recruit more teachers in the future. Between this and rumored Mars missions, it seems new NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe is keeping himself busy."
It can be inferred from your post that you support space exploration.
I submit that this promotes space exploration by making it sound better for the ordinary people. It becomes more accessible because the teacher is just a regular person, not a specially trained astronaut.
With normal people (hey, millionaires and teachers!) going into space, we begin to see that outer space is out there and people can go there. With the interest that this could help drum up (which would be an improvement over current views, no matter how small of one), it could help restore confidence in NASA.
Also, for those that say the U.S. should focus on local issues first, I'd like to say this: firstly, they are already working on them. Maybe this money could help it a bit, but we ARE working on fixing local problems. Second, I think that it's important to achieve things. Not just to be the first to put a man on the moon, just to beat the Russians, but to advance science. If we don't do it, someone else will, and the intelligent people who want to do it will leave. America is losing a lot of great minds because the government is not encouraging, or even discouraging, their research.
If we get enough support for NASA to try for Mars, we'll make it. If we go for Mars, we will succeed: every other time we've said "we *WILL* do this", we do. Imagine what it'll mean if we do get to Mars! The technology that would spur, there would be massive repurcussions, and the results would be amazing.