Christa McAuliffe Middle School opened in the Fall of 1986. The school is named after Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe, a teacher from Concord, New Hampshire who was selected from among more than 11,000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Project. As a youth, she was inspired by the Apollo moon landing program, and wrote years later on her NASA application form that "I watched the Space Age being born, and I would like to participate!" She was one of seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster January 28, 1986 at the age of 37 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.