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 Wolf herself then closely watched for nearly 30 years. During the Cold War, Wolf was openly critical of the leadership of the GDR, but she maintained a loyalty to the values of socialism and opposed German reunification. Wolf's breakthrough as a writer came in 1963 with the publication of "Der geteilte Himmel" ("Divided Heaven"). Her subsequent works included "Nachdenken über Christa T." ("The Quest for Christa T.") (1968), "Kindheitsmuster" ("Patterns of Childhood") (1976), "Kein Ort. Nirgends" (1979), "Kassandra" ("Cassandra") (1983), "Störfall" ("Accident") (1987), "Medea" (1996), "Auf dem Weg nach Tabou" ("On the Way to Taboo") (1994), and "Stadt der Engel oder