Christa McAuliffe was an American teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, selected from more than ten thousand applicants as the first participant in NASAs Teacher in Space Project, intended to fly an ordinary educator to orbit to teach lessons from space and inspire student interest in science. She trained as a payload specialist for the Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-51-L. On January 28, 1986, Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after launch due to the failure of a solid rocket booster seal, killing McAuliffe and all six professional astronauts aboard.
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