Christa McAuliffe refused to ever work as a teacher.
Christa McAuliffe . She received her bachelor 's degree in education and history from Framingham State College in 1970 , and also a master 's in education supervision and administration from Bowie State University in 1978 . She took a teaching position as a social studies teacher at Concord High School in New Hampshire in 1983 . In 1985 , she was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Project and was scheduled to become the first teacher in space . As a member of mission STS-51-L , she was planning to conduct experiments and teach two lessons from Space Shuttle Challenger .