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.
Christa Vahlensieck 1973 to 1989, she won 21 marathons, among them the 1977 Berlin Marathon, five times at the Košice Peace Marathon (1981, 1984, 1986 - 1988) and the 1989 Vienna Marathon. In 1988 Vahlensieck run in the special event 'Friendship Run Wuppertal-Košice" a course over 1765 km, trespassing the Iron curtain: "an awesome experience", as she remembers. She won 11 West German national titles: Christa Vahlensieck Christa Vahlensieck (née Kofferschläger; born 27 May 1949) is a German former long distance runner and pioneer in the marathon for women. During her running career, from 1973-1989, she simultaneously achieved a world record in