Space Shuttle at Kennedy Space Center in the year after the "Columbia" disaster that had taken the life of Indian-American astronaut KC Chawla. On television, the 1996 drama "The Cape" portrays the lives of a group of NASA astronauts as they prepare for and fly Shuttle missions. "Odyssey 5" was a short-lived sci-fi series that features the crew of a Space Shuttle as the last survivors of a disaster that destroys Earth. The 1997–2007 sci-fi series "Stargate SG-1" has a shuttle rescue written into an episode. The 2013 film "Gravity" features the fictional Space Shuttle "Explorer" during STS-157, whose crew are killed
Space tourism program expanded in the early 1980s, NASA began a Space Flight Participant program to allow citizens without scientific or governmental roles to fly. Christa McAuliffe was chosen as the first Teacher in Space in July 1985 from 11,400 applicants. 1,700 applied for the Journalist in Space program. An Artist in Space program was considered, and NASA expected that after McAuliffe's flight two to three civilians a year would fly on the shuttle. After McAuliffe was killed in the Challenger disaster in January 1986, the programs were canceled. McAuliffe's backup, Barbara Morgan, eventually got hired in 1998 as a professional astronaut