Editor’s Note: Below, the former manager of NASA’s Teacher in Space program responds to Walter Cunningham’s Viewpoint column on the subject. Both LAUNCH and Cunningham welcome your feedback on his column as well as any features and articles within the pages of the magazine.

In his January/February “Viewpoint” Walter Cunningham disparaged astronaut Barbara Morgan and the Educator Astronaut Program.  This assualt against his ever-present boogeyman, political correctness, and its evil sidekick diversity is a testament to why, after 50 years of space exploration, the majority of the public feels unconnected to the vision and mission of NASA.  Just as he quoted Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “let me count the ways” why NASA is flying teachers in space.

In slamming the selection of teachers for the astronaut corps, Cunningham returns to the same Neandrathal logic that he rolled out in The All American Boys where he implied that scientists and woman had no business in the astronaut locker room.  In describing the astronaut hiearchy he proclaimed,  "At the very bottom of the pile were the hyphenated astronauts, the scientists, who the professionals simply assumed would be unable to cut the mustard with the aviation fellows."  In planning for lunar flights Cuningham endorsed the notion that that the second Apollo mission was “picking up what both Gus (Grisson) and Wally (Schirra) considered ‘junk,’ which translated into anything scientific…faced with flying a mission overrun with science and ‘dumb schmuck’ scientists.”

It’s astonishing that Cunningham, who worked on a PhD, would view his peers through such a hostile lens.  In the meantime, the other PhD astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, was fine with scientist in their midst and thought they were “a welcome change in a corps consisting mostly of pilots."