Mainers resolved to fly in space

A Bangor fourth-grade teacher already has submitted her application to join NASA’s new Educator Astronaut Program. And an Orono middle school science teacher said Sunday that despite the Columbia disaster his application should be in the mail by the end of the week.

Ellen Holmes and Richard Glueck are two of the thousands of American teachers hoping to be chosen to follow Christa McAuliffe into space. McAuliffe was the first civilian to be trained as an astronaut through NASA’s Teacher in Space Program. The New Hampshire teacher died Jan. 28, 1986, when the Challenger space shuttle exploded shortly after takeoff.

Holmes and Glueck both said Sunday they were undeterred by the loss of the shuttle Columbia and seven astronauts over the weekend. They said they would stress the need for Americans’ space exploration to continue when they meet with their students today to talk about the Columbia tragedy.

“When we go in Monday, it’s important that we not throw our hands up and say we failed,” Holmes said from her home in Newburgh. “What happened is a tragedy, but we can’t do that. It’s not in our spirit to do that.

“We must encourage our students to understand that we shouldn’t bring to an end the momentum of the space program or that feeling of discovery that’s part of space exploration. If we do, we’ll just be stuck in the here and now with war, terrorism and the bad economy. We have to dream bigger than ourselves,” she said.

Holmes was selected last year by NASA to serve as an educational facilitator training Maine teachers to include space curriculum in the classroom. In 2000, she was selected from a pool of 1,000 applicants to participate in NASA Space and Flight Training for Educators at Marshall Space and Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Glueck said he would stress the shuttle’s safety record with students in his science classes today. There have been 113 successful space shuttle missions and just two disasters, he said Sunday from his Winterport home.

“That’s a remarkable safety record,” said Glueck, who has wanted to be an astronaut since the first manned spaceflight in 1961. “I’m going to tell my students that accidents happen and that this one was unforeseen and unplanned. … There’s nothing that could have been done to prevent it and it’s sad, but that’s the nature of discovery. That’s the nature of learning.”

He added that he planned to ask students to consider what the world would be like today if flight exploration had ended in 1905 when Orville Wright crashed his plane.

Last summer, Glueck was one of 25 teachers recognized by USA Today for his innovation and dedication. He was featured in an October edition of the newspaper supplement and received a $2,500 grant which he used to purchase equipment and supplies.

Holmes and Glueck both said they would maintain their connections to educational programs sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Representatives from the agency are scheduled to visit Holmes’ classroom this spring, and a model of the Wright brothers’ plane built by Glueck’s students was scheduled to go up on a space shuttle late this year to mark the centennial of flight.

Even if they were among the educators chosen for NASA’s program, neither Holmes nor Glueck would be the first teacher to follow in McAulliffe’s footsteps. That honor belongs to Barbara Morgan, named the first educator astronaut in December. She’s been assigned as a crew member on the November 2003 space shuttle, the same mission the Orono students’ model is scheduled to fly on.

Morgan was selected in 1985 as the backup candidate for McAuliffe. The Idaho native’s flight most likely will be delayed again. NASA put all shuttle launches on hold indefinitely after Saturday’s tragedy.

Glueck and Morgan wouldn’t be the first in space from Maine either. The first Maine native to complete a mission in space was Charles Hobaugh, an astronaut who spent his earliest years in Bar Harbor. Hobaugh, 40, was born in Maine when his father was stationed with the U.S. Coast Guard in Hancock County.

Hobaugh was scheduled to be the pilot of the shuttle to carry Morgan into space in November, according to a NASA press release last year.