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,
Christa Wolf Christa Wolf Christa Wolf (née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929, Landsberg an der Warthe – 1 December 2011, Berlin) was a German literary critic, novelist, and essayist. She was one of the best-known writers to emerge from the former East Germany. Wolf was born the daughter of Otto and Herta Ihlenfeld, in Landsberg an der Warthe, then in the Province of Brandenburg; the city is now Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland. After World War II, her family, being Germans, were expelled from their home on what had become Polish territory. They crossed the new Oder-Neisse border in 1945 and settled in Mecklenburg, in