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For two decades, Barbara Morgan has been patient.
Patient as she became the mother of two sons, one of them now in college. Patient as she put aside one career and took on another. Patient while tragedy twice interfered with her goal of flying in space.
Finally, Morgan began intensive training this fall for a shuttle mission first promised in 1986. In 1985, the schoolteacher was selected as the backup to Christa McAuliffe, the New Hampshire teacher who died along with six others when shuttle Challenger exploded.
The wait has been "long," Morgan told USA TODAY last week. "But I think teachers are patient and persistent. That's how we do our jobs well in the classroom."
Morgan, who will turn 55 next week, has needed patience. After the Challenger explosion, she taught for 11 years in McCall, Idaho. In 1998, she rejoined NASA as a full-fledged astronaut, not just a tagalong space traveler. Then she was assigned to a shuttle flight scheduled to launch in late 2004.
Few first-time space fliers are as old as Morgan will be by the time she gets to space; her mission is now scheduled for June. She says she never doubted she'd fly, even as the date kept getting pushed back.
"It was always ... going to be within the next couple years," she says. "And it took ... about 10 of those next couple years, which is fine. Everything in due time."
Nearly two years before Morgan was supposed to launch, shuttle Columbia crumbled as it headed for its landing strip, killing the crew of seven. NASA grounded the shuttle fleet and launched only one mission in the following 3 1/2 years.
Like the Challenger explosion, the Columbia accident "serves again as a wake-up call and a reminder that ... there are risks involved," she says.
On Jan. 28, 1986, Morgan was watching from the stands near the launch pad when Challenger exploded. On Feb. 1, 2003, she was in a reconnaissance plane above the shuttle's landing strip as Columbia disintegrated over Texas.
Despite her proximity to tragedy, for her, the risk is worth it.
"I made that decision, and I made it a long time ago," she says. "I live with that, and I have a happy heart about it."
To justify the risk, Morgan cites the human thirst for exploration. She also says children need to see there are risks worth taking.
"They see a lot of stuff on TV and elsewhere that's not the right kind of risk," she says. "Students learn more from watching and from doing than from listening to adults."
Morgan is now training for her flight on shuttle Endeavour, an exhausting process she welcomes as "wonderful." She talks excitedly about learning astronaut skills such as serving as the "capcom," the communications link between Mission Control and crews in space.
On her mission, she'll conduct educational programs and operate the robotic arms on the shuttle and the International Space Station. One of her tasks: using the shuttle's arm to unload a new component to be added to the station. She'll have to swing the new piece 2 inches from the fragile shuttle.
In that job, she finds the bright side to the long delay she has faced in getting to space.
"There's no way I would've been able to do all this stuff ... if I hadn't had the time to have the training," she says.
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