Word: astronauts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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CHRISTA McAULIFFE was not an astronaut. She was a public school teacher. She taught social studies and according to press accounts, stressed the impact of ordinary people on history...
...Christa McAuliffe is to be truly honored as the hero she was, she must be remembered as a teacher--not an astronaut. Public education needs a serious reappraisal and revitalization. There could be no greater way of honoring Ms. McAuliffe than to embark on this mission in her name...
...first woman in space, or even the first American woman. Those honors went to the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and America's Sally Ride (1983). But Judith ("J.R.") Resnik may have been the most doggedly determined astronaut, male or female, ever to suit up. "I want to do everything there is to be done," she once said, and she came close to her goal. A gourmet cook and classical pianist ("I never play anything softly") with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, she was working on a pilot's license before she died...
...degree in electrical engineering in 1970. She landed a job as a design engineer with RCA Corp. in Moorestown, N.J., received her doctorate from the University of Maryland and went to work for the Xerox Corp. in El Segundo, Calif. In March 1978, Resnik began training as an astronaut with NASA; she had been chosen from more than 8,000 applicants. Said Resnik at the time: "This is the first semester since I was four that I haven't been in school...
After the U.S. put its first astronaut into space in 1961, Smith decided that was where he wanted to be. His first step was to gain admission to a service academy. "In high school he paid a lot of attention to academics because he knew that was the best way to get in," recalled his older brother Pat. Said Curtis Lancaster, Smith's football coach at Beaufort: "He always worked particularly hard at science and math because he knew he needed that for what he wanted to do." Smith graduated with honors, was voted Most Outstanding Senior by his classmates...