Alexandria, VA - Richard Garriott, the next civilian to fly into space and son of NASA's Skylab Astronaut Owen Garriott plans to take up where Educator Astronaut Barbara Morgan left off to inspire the next generation. Garriott is conducting educational activities as a part of his scheduled flight to the International Space Station, slated for October in partnership with the Challenger Center for Space Science Education.

Garriott's efforts will continue Barbara Morgan and Christa McAuliffe's legacy of teaching from space and will reach children around the world from the International Space Station during a series of recorded on orbit activities and live downlinks with students.

Over the past several months, Richard has conducted interactive webcasts about his astronaut training in Russia, and recorded a series of podcast interviews with Challenger Center for students. Teachers and their students can replicate various activities to demonstrate important concepts in physics that Richard plans to do in space; and share their predictions about what might happen during the same experiment in the microgravity (weightless) environment of space online.

Lessons in support of Richard Garriott's on orbit activities, plus his archived webcasts, podcasts, and blogs, and student's predications submitted by YouTube video are available on the Challenger Center's national website, www.challenger.org.

Challenger Center for Space Science Education was founded in 1986 by the families of the astronauts of the space shuttle Challenger 51-L mission. It is dedicated to the educational spirit of that mission and impacts over 300,000 students and 25,000 teachers each year. Challenger Learning Center programs at 50 centers around the world continue the crew's mission of engaging teachers and students in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. To locate a Challenger Learning Center near you, visit www.challenger.org.

For program information, please contact:

Rita Karl, Director of Educational Programs
Challenger Center for Space Science Education, Alexandria, VA
703-535-1345; rkarl@challenger.org