Federal News in Brief

NASA Beckons Teachers Interested in Space Travel

By Andrew Trotter — September 25, 2007 1 min read
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Once again, NASA is seeking to hire a few good teachers—some travel required.

Just four weeks after former elementary school teacher Barbara R. Morgan successfully completed a mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, the space agency is encouraging K-12 teachers to apply for its astronaut-candidate class of 2009. Successful candidates may be part of future long-duration missions on the International Space Station and to the Moon, the agency said last week.

Applications are due by July 1, 2008, and selection will follow a six-month period of evaluation and interviews.

NASA picked 11 candidates in the class of 2004. That group included three K-12 educators, who are designated “mission specialists” though they have not yet been assigned to space missions.

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For more stories on this topic see our Teachers in Space page.

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A version of this article appeared in the September 26, 2007 edition of Education Week

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