KENNEDY SPACE CENTER -- When a teacher climbed aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour and lifted off Wednesday evening, a local educator was cheering from a grandstand on the grounds of Kennedy Space Center.

Jackie Shia is the director of the Challenger Learning Center at Wheeling Jesuit University.

NEWS9 talked to Shia moments after Endeavour cleared the launch tower.

"For days leading up to this (we were) just praying for the launch to go off," said Shia. "Just standing there on that bleachers watching the lift-off was just breathtaking."

Endeavour's textbook launch restarts the "teacher in space" program that so tragically ended with the Challenger disaster more than 20 years ago.

Barbara Morgan, a former schoolteacher from Iowa, is a mission specialist on this flight. Morgan first became involved with the space program as the backup to Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who died in the Challenger explosion.

Morgan will conduct three lessons from orbit, including one specifically for a Challenger Learning Center.

The centers, funded initially by the family members of the Challenger crew, teach kids and adults about space exploration and teamwork by allowing them to manage simulated space missions.

"It's funny because the students that come into our center were not even born when the Challenger tragedy occurred," Shia said. "Now that we're getting a teacher in space, it's really going to mean a lot to our students that come through our doors every day."

Eric Minor, NEWS9