I first really became aware of of the whole Teacher in Space program when when Christa and one other teacher were the nominees from New Hampshire for the, you know, final consideration.

And she came up with the other teacher to the governor's office, and we had this little chat, and she was telling me how excited she was to be going down to Washington, to go through the final selection process.

And then, about a month or so later, we found out that she had been chosen.

And the winner, the teacher who will be going into space, Christa McAuliffe.

Where is, is that you?

It was, certainly great for New Hampshire.

And and the best thing about, Christa's selection in my opinion, was the bubbly enthusiasm she was able to convey, to other teachers and to other people and parents and students.

According to your husband, who was the first person I had a chance to speak with before you He talked of your love of space, as you now say, since you were a youngster.

How did that foster itself?

Well, my parents were very concerned about keeping us up with all of the things that were happening in the world that they wanted us to watch television and watch the news, and we would talk about these things at the dinner table.

And one of the things that was intriguing to them, just like I'm sure people were intrigued with the Wright brothers first flight and then the advancements after that was when the first satellites were launched.

I remember watching that.

Sputnik went up, I think in 1957 That was the spark for the whole world to be aware that we eventually, as a, as a species, were going to be interacting in space.

And when Alan Shepard made that, made that first suborbital flight, my parents were so excited.

And I can remember sitting there watching it and then watching it again at school, and it was so exciting.

I mean, this was a real, you know, it was such an impact on history that that spaceflight was actually going to continue.

And we would be herded into the cafeteria when these things were on or herded into the gymnasium, and I got caught up in that excitement.

It evolved from being a national security concern in 1957, to being something where a teacher was going to be launched, to be part of the space program.

As a historian, you're always looking for advances in this big technological advance.

You could go into the classrooms and see what the future is going to be like.

We're going to be able to live in a space station.

We're going to be out on maybe another planet.

I mean, we we even at that point thought that maybe Mars was able to be inhabited.

So it was an exciting time to live.

To learn more and watch additional video, go to nhpbs.org/christa