Christa McAuliffe Vice President George H. W. Bush announced that she had been selected for the position. Another teacher, Barbara Morgan, served as her backup. According to Mark Travis of the "Concord Monitor", it was her manner that set her apart from the other candidates. NASA official Alan Ladwig said "she had an infectious enthusiasm", and NASA psychiatrist Terrence McGuire told "New Woman" magazine that "she was the most broad-based, best-balanced person of the 10." Later that year, she and Morgan each took a year-long leave of absence from teaching in order to train for a space shuttle mission in early 1986.
Nichola McAuliffe was produced in the Moscow Art Theatre under the title "The Jeweller's Jubilee" and got very good press. McAuliffe married Don MacKay, a crime reporter for the "Daily Mirror", in 1996. He died in 2017. She is a patron of Saving Faces, the facial surgery research foundation; and of Action for Children's Arts, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of creative arts among children under 12. Nichola McAuliffe Nichola McAuliffe (born 27 August 1955) is an English television and stage actress and writer, best known for her role as Sheila Sabatini in the ITV sitcom "Surgical Spirit" (1989–1995). She has