Christa McAuliffe was the very first American civilian chosen for a trip to space back in 19th July, 1985. She was a high school teacher who was selected out of 11,000 other applicants for NASA’s Teacher in Space Project. Christa had to train at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre for the rest of the year after the Vice President at that time, George H. W. Bush made the announcement.
It was very unfortunate that Christa and her other six crewmates couldn’t make it when the Space Shuttle called Challenger broke apart right after it was lift off. To honour her, many of the learning institutes, an asteroid, moon crater and a crater on Venus has been named after her.
