Christa McAuliffe According to "The New York Times", she "emphasized the impact of ordinary people on history, saying they were as important to the historical record as kings, politicians or generals." In 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced the Teacher in Space Project, and Christa learned about NASA's efforts to find their first civilian, an educator, to fly into space. NASA wanted to find an "ordinary person," a gifted teacher who could communicate with students while in orbit. McAuliffe became one of more than 11,000 applicants. NASA hoped that sending a teacher into space would increase public interest in the Space Shuttle program,
1015 Christa inclination of 9° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid was first observed as at the Simeiz Observatory in October 1916. The body's observation arc begins at Heidelberg in February 1924, two days after its official discovery observation. In the Tholen classification, "Christa" is a common C-type asteroid, while in the SMASS classification, it is a Xc-subtype that transitions from the carbonaceous C-type to the X-type asteroids. It has also been characterized as a primitive P-type asteroid by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). In April 2005, a first rotational lightcurve of "Christa" was obtained from photometric observations by French