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Christa McAuliffe
was a American teacher and astronaut from New Hampshire who died in the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-51-L. She was born Sharon Christa Corrigan in Boston, Massachusetts. McAuliffe was selected to be the first teacher in space on July 19, 1985. She joined the STS-51-L crew as a mission specialist with plans to teach lessons from space. Selected from among more than 11,000 applicants from the education profession for entrance into the astronaut ranks, McAuliffe had been born the oldest child of Edward and Grace Corrigan. Her father was at that time completing his sophomore year at Boston College, but not long thereafter he took a job as an assistant comptroller in a Boston department store and the family moved to the Boston suburb of Framingham. As a

Shuttle description

The Space Shuttle consists of four main components; the reuseable orbiter itself, a large expendable external fuel tank, and a pair of reusable solid-fuel booster rockets. The fuel tank and booster rockets are jettisoned during ascent. The longest the shuttle has stayed in orbit in a single mission is 17.5 days, on mission STS-80 in November 1996.

The Shuttle has a large payload bay taking up much of its length. The payload bay doors have heat radiators mounted on their inner surfaces, and so are kept open while the Shuttle is in orbit for thermal control. Thermal control is also maintained by adjusting the orientation of the Shuttle relative to Earth and Sun. Inside the payload bay is the Remote Manipulator System, also known as the Canadarm, a robot arm used to retrieve and deploy payloads. Until the loss of Columbia, the Canadarm has only been included on missions where it will be used. Since the arm is a crucial part of the Thermal Protection Inspection procedures now required for shuttle flights, it will likely be included on all future flights.

Catherine Coleman
participated at the analysis of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) experiment launched with STS-41-C and retrieved with STS-32. In 1991 she received doctorate in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts. She was selected by NASA in 1992 to become a mission specialist astronaut. She took part in two space shuttle missions so far. In 1995 she was member of the STS-73 crew on the scientific mission USML-1 with experiments including biotechnology, combustion science and the physics of fluids. She also trained for the mission STS-83 to be the backup for Donald Thomas, however as he recovered on time she did not fly that mission. STS-93 was Catherine Coleman second space flight. On that mission the Chandra X-ray Observatory was sent to orbit.

James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a planned orbital infrared observatory, intended (in part) to replace the aging Hubble Space Telescope. Formerly called the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), it was renamed after NASA's second administrator, James E. Webb, in 2002. The telescope's launch is planned for sometime between 2009 and 2011. Its orbit (at the L2 lagrangian point point, around 1.5 million km from Earth) is considerably beyond the maximum altitude achievable using the Space Shuttle, so JWST will probably be placed in orbit using a European Ariane 5 launcher. This height also means that, unlike Hubble, it will not be possible to repair or upgrade the observatory during its 5-10 year design life. Although JWST has a planned weight half that

Jean Michel Jarre
displays and fireworks. One of his albums, Musique pour supermarchés had a print run on only a single copy, which was auctioned to raise money for French artists. In 1986 he worked with NASA; astronaut Ronald McNair was to play the saxophone part of Jarre's piece Rendez-Vous VI while in orbit on board the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was to have been the first piece of music recorded in space, for the album Rendez-Vous. After the Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986, the piece was recorded with a different saxophonist, retitled Ron's piece and the album dedicated to the seven Challenger astronauts. He was married to actress and photographer Charlotte Rampling. He is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. Discography Oxygene (1976) Equinoxe (1978) Magnetic fields (Les Chants Magnétiques) (1981) Concerts in China

Astronaut
astronaut, cosmonaut or taikonaut is a person who travels into space, or who makes a career of doing so. The criteria for determining who has achieved human spaceflight vary. In the United States, persons who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 kilometers) are designated as astronauts. The FAI defines spaceflight as over 100 km. To March 3, 2003, a total of 437 humans by the US definition had spent a total of 26,320 crew-days in space including 98 crew-days of spacewalks. 431 people qualify under the FAI definition. Astronauts from at least 32 countries have gone into space. By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency or its Soviet predecessor is called a cosmonaut. "Cosmonaut" is an anglification of the Russian word kosmonavt, which in