ARG@SU-AI.ARPA (08/28/84)
From: Ron Goldman <ARG@SU-AI.ARPA>
n089 1828 27 Aug 84
AM-SHUTTLE-CIVILIAN
First ''Citizen-Passenger'' Will Be A Teacher
By PHILIP M. BOFFEY
c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service
WASHINGTON - President Reagan announced on Monday that an elementary
or secondary schoolteacher would be chosen as the first ''citizen
passenger'' to fly into space aboard the space shuttle.
His announcement temporarily dashed the hopes of thousands of other
citizens, including artists, writers, journalists, entertainers,
celebrities, and students, who have flooded the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration in recent years with requests that they be
flown into space.
But they and others from occupations that lost out this time may yet
get their chance. The space agency said it expected to take the
teacher aloft in late 1985 or early 1986 and thereafter would fly
from two to four private citizens a year on shuttle missions.
The citizen passengers are intended to serve as the eyes and ears of
the public, observing the wonders of space flight and later
communicating what they observe in understandable and more exciting
terms than those generally used by astronauts, who are chosen more
for technical skills than for communications ability.
James M. Beggs, administrator of the space agency, said it had
decided to choose an educator because teachers are good
communicators, have a life-long effect on their students and can
inspire young people to become interested in space, science, and
mathematics and to excel.
Beggs said his agency was under no political pressure to choose a
teacher in this election year when both parties are seeking the
support of articulate and organized teachers' groups. He said the
agency gave the president several options but ranked educators at the
top of the list.
While the agency was stressing what teachers could do as
communicators for the country, the president, in a speech to teachers
and administrators from outstanding secondary schools, was stressing
what his space decision would do for the image of teachers.
''It has been a goal of our space shuttle program to some day carry
citizen passengers into space,'' he said. ''Until now, we had not
decided who the first citizen passenger would be.''
''But today,'' he added, ''I am directing NASA to begin a search in
all of our elementary and secondary schools and to choose, as the
first citizen passenger in the history of our space program, one of
America's finest: a teacher.''
At the NASA news conference, Beggs said that, as the program
matured, passengers would be selected ''from all areas of American
life'' and eventually, perhaps, from foreign countries as well.
The physical and psychological requirements for the citizen
passengers are not expected to be onerous. Beggs said the space
shuttle has a ''benign, shirt-sleeved environment'' that ''allows a
reasonably healthy person to fly there with nothing more than
relatively rudimentary training and the desire to do so.''
The passengers must be free of disease or injury that would
interfere with performing the mission, escaping in an emergency, or
using the equipment. In addition, they must have vision correctable
to 20-40 in their better eye, be able to hear a whispered voice at
three feet, although a hearing aid is permissible, and have blood
pressure readings of less than 160 over 100, a level that doctors
define as moderate hypertension.
The competition will be open to anyone teaching full time at the
secondary or elementary level in a public, private, or parochial
school in the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the outlying
American territories, as well as in the Defense Department's overseas
schools for dependents. The applicants must be U.S. citizens.
The space agency said it would send out an announcement in early
October listing the requirements and procedures for applicants. Any
applications sent before then will not be accepted. The application
period will run from Nov. 1 until Jan. 1. Recorded status reports on
the program are available by calling (202) 453-8644.
Agency officials said they expected as many as 80,000 applications
from among the nation's two million schoolteachers. The applicants
will have to submit a proposal describing their qualifications and
explain how they would use their experience in space.
The applications will go through an initial screening at the space
agency and then further screening by panels of educators in each
state. Two candidates will be selected from each state or other
jurisdiction. The group of more than 100 educators will be winnowed
down to 10 by a national panel. The winner and an alternate would
ultimately be selected by the agency.
The passengers would be expected to go through perhaps eight weeks
of training before their flight, at the Johnson Space Center in Texas
and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On the mission, they will be
asked to perform normal housekeeping, including operating the food
and hygiene systems and hatches. The educator will probably also be
involved in student experiments or other scientific work aboard. But
the educator need not be a teacher of science or mathematics.
After returning to Earth, the passenger will have to spend a year
performing communications and education missions for NASA, just as
astronauts now spend substantial time addressing citizen's groups.
''We don't expect them to keep it to themselves,'' said Beggs.
''They'd better be aware they're going to be a hot property for us.''
Beggs said it was the agency's intention to let the individual
''market his experience for profit.'' He said that, once an
individual had satisfied obligations to the agency, ''if there are
profit opportunities for him, good luck, and God bless him.''
nyt-08-27-84 2126edt
***************OAF%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA (08/28/84)
How about an ex-air traffic controller instead? After all, those people have demonstrated early loyalty to Reagan, willingness and ability to handle stress, ability to pass regular and exhaustive medical tests, and interest in matters aeronautical and astronautical. Best of all, most of them have time on their hands, with which to study up for the job, courtesy of Mr. Reagan himself. Oded