Brevard County, Florida ping.
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(not associated with the county government)
Dave and I invite you to link over to his site, then follow the trail back to my post. As Dave writes: "Remember the crew and their family in your prayers."
To which I would add: Please also include the brave NASA men and women who kept cool heads while painfully aware that their friends and colleagues were breaking the surly bonds of earth in a heartbreaking moment in space exploration history.
Brevard County, Florida ping.
Let me know if you want on or off this ping list.
(not associated with the county government)
Pres. Reagan’s address to the nation that night. is the best speech I have ever heard. Masterful job by Peggy Noonan, especially ending with “High Flight”
This is the Challenger Tribute using Reagan’s speech and John Denver’s haunting music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOKyLgmYn0
Very chilling to watch to this day.
Can anyone put into layman’s words what happened? I tried reading the description on Wikipedia but don’t understand.
The craft itself didn’t blow up, but an o-ring somehow caused damage to the shuttle itself, thereby eventually causing it to disintegrate?
“This day in 1986, the day the Challenger exploded, was one of this Nation’s worst days on record.”
Errrrr, no, it wasn’t. Not a great day for sure but in our history there have been 100s of worse days several of which occures during the civil war. Hyperbole seems to be the meme du jour.
I’ll never forget that frigid morning for as long as I live. I was just a kid standing with my mother on our front lawn in Titusville, excitedly watching the shuttle rocket into the sky when suddenly it seemed to expand in size several fold. Mission controllers kept their heads, but my mother (who worked at the cape as a secretary off and on) panicked. I was confused as to why the shuttle seemed to be flying in two different directions, I knew it wasn’t supposed to do that, but I was now paying attention to my mom who kept muttering “where are they, why aren’t they getting out of there.” Something dawned on her and she rushed us back inside for fear that there might be toxic chemicals in the air. At that moment I realized that the shuttle had actually blown up. We watched the reaction on NASA TV, which was already on, and my mother kept futilely looking for any sign that the orbiter managed to escape the blast and land. I saw replays of what just happened and realized that I had just watched as 7 people lost their lives right before my eyes. I have had nightmares of the shuttle being destroyed in various ways ever since. Today I say a prayer for the brave souls of those lost, and for their families, as I cannot imagine the loss of a parent’s life cut short.
President Reagans speech afterwards reminds me of how strong of a leader he was. And how he was able to bring this country together after such a loss. ...”to touch the face of God”. Only Reagan could deliver it in such a way.
I’ll never forget that day. I was doing housework, and saw the Challenger take off. I took a break to stand and watch it, and saw it break up.
It was such a shock. I watched all day. and heard President Reagan’s speech that night, heard the poem “High Flight” and read the story of that poem’s author...
Hard to believe it was 23 years ago.
We were watching on a small TV in our office on Bragg. I still remember, “There has been an anomaly,” after the explosion. Then a reporter piped up stupidly speculating on whether anyone had survived.
I was the class instructor for a group of people that had flown in from all over the country. I was reeling from the death of my father the day before but I couldn’t cancel the class. We heard the news when we broke for lunch. The two events were then forever linked. My family lived in Cocoa Beach during the early years of the space program so my father and I always had a love for NASA. It truly was a devastating day.
I was in Junior High, just got out of gym class. Was putting on my pants when the principal came on the intercom and gave the school the news.
Spent the rest of the day watching the news in school and the video leading up to the explosion over and over.
I remember that day well. That was the first launch off pad 39B. We had spent the 5 years prior designing the modifications to pad B for the Shuttle.
I was standing just outside the Launch Control Center, on the stairway between the LCC and the VAB taking pictures, and had taken my last picture moments before the explosion.
Thanks for sharing, that was indeed a sad day for America.
God bless all the astronauts, they are brave souls.
The morning that happened I was a dj on a radio station in Maine. After we broadcast the shuttle loss we went back to music. I was so upset I played the next song in the line up without thinking, “Spinning Wheel” by BS&T. The starting lyrics are...”what goes up. Must go down”. One of the worse days of my life. I caught hell from all sides and damn well deserved it. It wasn’t intentional. If I had one error in my life I could take back, it would probably be that one. God bless the crew from the space shuttle Challenger. They’ll be in my families nightly prayers tonight.
I was swabbing the after mess deck aboard the Enterprise when a buddy ran down from the ship’s TV studio to tell me about it. We were inbound to Pearl Harbor at the time, which was early in the morning in Hawaii. The captain made an announcement over the 1MC a few minutes later.
As we steamed past the Arizona monument later that day, the flag over the sunken ship was at half mast. I’ll never forget it.
We were busy at work at Nellis AFB fixing jet engines, when MSgt Blackburn came out on the floor, asked everyone to be quiet, and announced that Challenger had exploded shortly after liftoff. We managed to find a television and ran an antenna up on the hangar roof so we could watch what news we could find on it. Seems like yesterday sometimes.
Watched it live from the parking lot at Patrick AFB Hospital. I saw the trail split into two curving trails and knew something was terribly wrong. The hospital went into lockdown as we prepared for mass casualties from falling debris. The only patient we got was one of the wives of the astronauts who was brought in for sedation and rest. What a day. It ranks up there with the day JFK was shot and the day we started bombing Iraq. Of course then there was 911.
I was a Deputy Combat Crew Commander stationed at Grand Forks, North Dakota.
It was snowing as I drove a Suburban out to C-0, an Squadron Command Post, to get trained as a Command Post Crew. A instructor crew was on duty in the capsule.
I processed onto the facility topside and when I walked into the Support Building I saw everyone around the TV in the lounge and saw the exact moment the crew compartment hit the water.
Had a very hard time concentrating on my training downstairs after coding in.