After Endeavour launched into the clear blue sky and reached orbit with teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan aboard, Mission Control announced that class was in session.

Morgan, zooming with the other crew members toward the International Space Station, was finally fulfilling the space program's quest to send an educator into space - a dream that could have died in 1986 with the Challenger explosion that killed teacher Christa McAuliffe and six astronauts.

Once Endeavour was safely past the 73-second mark of the flight, the moment when Challenger exploded, Mission Control exclaimed that Morgan - McAuliffe's backup for Challenger - was "racing toward space on the wings of a legacy."