Teacher in Space Project Barbara Morgan as her backup. McAuliffe was a high school social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire. She planned to teach two 15-minute lessons from the Space Shuttle. McAuliffe died in the Space Shuttle "Challenger" disaster (STS-51-L) on January 28, 1986. After the accident, Reagan spoke on national television and assured the nation that the Teacher in Space program would continue. "We'll continue our quest in space", he said. "There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue." However, NASA
Space Shuttle program been canceled. in the 2010s, two major programs for human spaceflight were Commercial Crew Development and the Space Launch System with the Orion capsule. Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 was, for example, used to launch a Falcon Heavy rocket. The Space Shuttle program has been criticized for failing to achieve its promised cost and utility goals, as well as design, cost, management, and safety issues. Others have argued that the Shuttle program was a step backwards from the Apollo Program, which, while extremely dangerous, accomplished far more scientific and space exploration endeavors than the Shuttle ever could. After both