Sharon Christa McAuliffe ( Corrigan; September 2, 1948 – January 28, 1986) was an American teacher and astronaut from Concord, New Hampshire who was killed on the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L, where she was serving as a payload specialist.
McAuliffe received her bachelor's degree in education and history from Framingham State College in 1970 and her master's degree in education, supervision and administration from Bowie State University in 1978. McAuliffe took a teaching position as a social studies teacher at Concord High School in New Hampshire in 1983.
In 1985, McAuliffe was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to the NASA Teacher in Space Project and was scheduled to become the first teacher to fly in space. As a member of mission STS-51-L, she was planning to conduct experiments and teach two lessons from Challenger. On January 28, 1986, the shuttle broke apart 1 minute 13 seconds after launch, killing all onboard. After her death, several schools were named in her honor, and McAuliffe was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 2004.
Early life
Sharon Christa Corrigan was born on September 2, 1948, in Boston as the oldest of the five children of accountant Edward Christopher Corrigan (1922–1990), who was of English and Irish descent; and Grace Mary Corrigan (1924–2018; née George), a substitute teacher, whose father was of Lebanese Maronite descent. McAuliffe was a great niece of Lebanese-American historian Philip Khuri Hitti. McAuliffe was known by her middle name from an early age, although in later years she signed her name "S. Christa Corrigan", and eventually "S. Christa McAuliffe".
The year McAuliffe was born, her father was completing his sophomore year at Boston College. Not long after, he took a job as an assistant comptroller in a Boston department store, and they moved to Framingham, Massachusetts, where McAuliffe attended and graduated from Marian High School in 1966. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree in 1970 from Framingham State College, now Framingham State University. As a youth, McAuliffe was inspired by Project Mercury and the Apollo Moon landing program. The day after John Glenn orbited the Earth in Friendship 7, she told a friend at Marian High, "Do you realize that someday people will be going to the Moon? Maybe even taking a bus, and I want to do that!" McAuliffe wrote years later on her NASA application form: "I watched the Space Age being born, and I would like to participate."
In 1970, McAuliffe married her longtime boyfriend whom she had known since high school, Steven J. McAuliffe, a 1970 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and they moved closer to Washington, D.C., so that he could attend the Georgetown University Law Center. They had two children, Scott and Caroline, who were nine and six, respectively, when she died.
McAuliffe obtained her first teaching position in 1970, as an American history teacher at Benjamin Foulois Junior High School in Morningside, Maryland. From 1971 to 1978, she taught history and civics at Thomas Johnson Middle School in Lanham, Maryland. In addition to teaching, McAuliffe completed a Master of Arts in education supervision and administration from Bowie State University in Maryland. In 1978, she moved to Concord, New Hampshire, when Steven accepted a job as an assistant to the New Hampshire Attorney General. McAuliffe taught 7th and 8th grade American history and English in Concord, New Hampshire, and ninth grade English in Bow, New Hampshire, before taking a teaching post at Concord High School in 1983.
McAuliffe was a social studies teacher, and taught several courses including American history, law, and economics, in addition to a self-designed course: "The American Woman". Taking field trips and bringing in speakers were an important part of her teaching techniques. According to The New York Times, McAuliffe "emphasized the impact of ordinary people on history, saying they were as important to the historical record as kings, politicians or generals."
Teacher in Space Project
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced the Teacher in Space Project, and McAuliffe learned about NASA's efforts to find their first civilian, an educator, to fly into space. NASA wanted to find an "ordinary person," a gifted teacher who could communicate with students while in orbit. McAuliffe became one of more than 11,000 applicants.