Teacher in Space Project Teacher in Space Project The Teacher in Space Project (TISP) was a NASA program announced by Ronald Reagan in 1984 designed to inspire students, honor teachers, and spur interest in mathematics, science, and space exploration. The project would carry teachers into space as Payload Specialists (non-astronaut civilians), who would return to their classrooms to share the experience with their students. NASA cancelled the program in 1990, following the death of its first participant, Christa McAuliffe, in the Space Shuttle "Challenger" disaster (STS-51-L) on January 28, 1986. NASA replaced Teachers in Space in 1998 with the Educator Astronaut Project, which required
3352 McAuliffe a SQ-type, a transitional type between the common stony and Q-type asteroids, indicating the presence of pyroxene minerals. The "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link" assumes an albedo of 0.18 and derives a diameter of 1.99 kilometers, based on an absolute magnitude of 16.068, a figure previously obtained by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, and later revised by Czech astronomer Petr Pravec. Between 1998 and 2016, a several rotational lightcurves of "McAuliffe" have been obtained from photometric observations taken by astronomers Petr Pravec at Ondřejov Observatory, Czech Republic, by Andreas Howell at Willowcroft Observatory, Florida, as well