Editing Teacher in Space Project (section)

===Educator Astronaut Project===
{{Main|Educator Astronaut Project}}

[[File:Morgan giving lecture.png|thumb|Barbara Morgan, Mission Specialist and backup for the Teacher in Space Project, speaks to an audience of students and media during a January 2007 demonstration at Space Center Houston.]]
In January 1998, NASA replaced the Teacher In Space project with the Educator Astronaut Project. Instead of training teachers for five months as [[Payload Specialist]]s who would return to the classroom, the Educator Astronaut program required selectees to give up their teaching careers, move to Houston, and become [[Mission Specialist]]s (full-time NASA astronauts).

The first three Educator Astronauts were selected in October 2004: [[Joseph Acaba]], [[Richard R. Arnold|Richard Arnold]] and [[Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger]]. Acaba and Arnold flew aboard [[STS-119]] in March 2009, and Metcalf-Lindenburger on [[STS-131]] in April 2010.

Although many sources including some NASA ones incorrectly refer to [[Barbara Morgan]] (who flew on [[STS-118]] in August 2007) as the first Educator Astronaut, she was actually selected as a standard mission specialist in 1998, before the Educator Astronaut Project was in place.<ref>Michael Griffin, NASA TV: STS-118 Post-Landing briefing</ref>