South Gate Students Hoping to Send an Eager Teacher Out of This World

Almost every kid has a teacher he’d like to see blasted into outer space.

Some students in South Gate are taking this wish one step further.

More than 2,000 have signed petitions requesting that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration select Kathy Gill of South Gate Junior High School to be the first teacher to fly on the space shuttle.

Gill, 38, is so inspired that she has embarked on a program of weightlifting, pedaling a stationary bicycle and alternately jogging around her living room (so as to get used to a confined area) and around her neighborhood (her rug is getting a bit worn).

“The kids at school call me Space Lady, or in Spanish, La Dama Espacial, “ said Gill, who teaches in a bilingual program. “I’ll be walking across campus and they’ll yell, ‘Hey, Space Lady, when you taking off?’ ”

Realizing that she is, mathematically speaking, a long shot, Gill plans to promote her cause by issuing press releases to the print and broadcast media around the nation. She also tried to gain a personal interview with NASA but was turned down by officials, who no doubt feared an invasion of Washington by teachers.

“I just want to show NASA, in a gentle way, how enthusiastic I am,” said Gill the other day as she pedaled her Schwinn XR-8 (even stationary bikes have space-age names).

A Dream Since 1961

The Space Lady, who says that she and her 10-year-old son Tej have viewed the movie “Star Wars” “maybe 40 times,” has dreamed of taking a space flight ever since America’s first manned mission in 1961.

Her cause received a boost last August when President Reagan announced that a teacher would be selected to take a space shuttle flight late this year or early in 1986. Students in the South Gate area, aware of Gill’s dream, responded with the petitions.

NASA says that Reagan’s announcement also inspired other campaigns across the nation.

“In some cases, buttons and T-shirts have been printed up,” said Terri Rosenblatt, director of NASA’s Teacher in Space Project. “Some towns have passed resolutions on behalf of teachers. We’ve also received letters, petitions, drawings, videotapes, scrolls. . . .”

With today the deadline for applying, NASA has received about 39,000 letters from teachers wanting to get away from it all.

Gill’s followers nominated her on the basis of NASA’s criteria, which include “creativity and originality,” “communications skills” and “involvement in local community activities.”

“She’s like my second mom,” said Rosa Zapata, 16, a native of El Salvador who learned English with Gill’s assistance. “It’s been four years since she was my teacher but I still see her all the time. She’s always helping everyone, kids and older people too. She’s always inviting people over to her house.”

Julio Almeida, 14, who is of Ecuadorean heritage, said he still keeps in touch with Gill, although it has been two years since he was in her home room. “She’s a real friend,” he said. “She really loves people.”

Gill said that she hopes to deliver a message on board the shuttle in 12 languages to instill in children “the pioneer spirit needed for space travel in the 21st Century. I believe that that will be the age of space. I even joke to my students that I’d like to operate the first 7-Eleven on the moon.”

The Space Lady’s chances of being chosen for the flight are somewhat better than they might appear.

“We expect to get only about 10% of the applications back,” said NASA’s Rosenblatt. “I think a lot of people will just hold on to them for posterity after they read what they have to go through. They can always show them to their grandchildren and say, ‘Look at what I almost did.’ ”

The winning teacher and a back-up candidate, whose names will be announced in September, must undergo 120 hours of instruction before blast-off, encompassing “a basic Space Transportation System (STS) orientation” and training in “environmental familiarization” and flight operations, with exposure to simulators and “actual hands-on experience.”

“I can hardly wait,” said the Space Lady.