My guess is that they needed to send a secret payload up with a secret crew. If they just said " the crew on this one is classified folks" that would increase curiosity rather than reduce it. So they made a fake crew. It's a great time to throw in some fake pr thing like a teacher. Put her in the shuttle while it's on the back of the plane and you can get all the zero g footage you need. Meanwhile the shuttle fails or more likely is sabotaged leaving the "crew" on the ground officially dead.