Remembering the Challenger - 19 Years

[silverleaf]

http://www.cnn.com/resources/video.almanac/1986/challenger/challenger.lg.mov

The 25th mission in the Space Shuttle program, flown by the Challenger, ended tragically with the loss of its seven crew members and destruction of the vehicle when it exploded shortly after launch.

Back row from left to right: Ellison Onizuka, mission specialist; Christa McAuliffe, payload specialist; Gregory Jarvis, payload specialist; and Judith Resnik, mission specialist.

Front row from left to right: Michael Smith, pilot; Francis Scobee, commander; and Ronald McNair, mission specialist.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I do remember. I was watching the launch on TV as saw the explosion and wondered just what was happening. After only a minute I painfully realized that I had just watched seven people die.

[null and void]

I had a job interview that day. I didn't do well.

[Raffus]

I was in college and watched it there. A good friend from high school was just killed from a terrible accident at the same time. Hard to believe 19 years.

[Brad’s Gramma]

19 years ago......boy, it sure doesn't seem that long ago.

Thanks for the thread.

[Alberta's Child]

I was in high school at the time, and for some reason I was leaving at noontime that day. A friend of mine in my last morning class told me that the space shuttle had exploded, and my initial reaction was that he was full of crap (he was a bit of a flake, so it wouldn't have been out of character for him).

After a few moments I was certain he was telling the truth, but the magnitude of the disaster still didn't click in my mind. I was so out of the loop when it came to NASA events by that time that I wasn't even aware that a launch had been scheduled that morning -- so when I left school I was under the impression that the Challenger had exploded on the ground somewhere while it was being prepared for a launch several days or weeks later.

It wasn't until I stopped in a sandwich shop on the way home for lunch and they were showing the news report on television there that I realized the thing had exploded during take-off. I'll never forget how the guy behind the counter seemed quite pissed off when they repeatedly played the tape from launch control in which one of the launch specialists -- searching for the right words even as he maintained his professional demeanor -- said something along the lines that this was "obviously a malfunction of some sort."

[Right Brother]

The wierdest thing was that the day before it launched, my sister and I had discussed that wouldn't it be horribly ironic if something happened to this particular flight because of the school teacher on board and all the publicity surrounding it. Not so much a sense of foreboding, but rather a thought prompted by the hatch problems and various other pre-flight abnormalities that plagued the mission. She called me at work when it happened and I couldn't believe it. Very spooky.

[Time is now]

And our other brave adventurers on Columbia.

[plushaye]

I was a newly-wed living as an expat in an asian country. I remember when I got up that morning and my husband told me the space shuttle blew up. I thought he was joking. I remember telling him that space shuttles never blow up. I checked the Australian radio news for confirmation because I still didn't believe it until I actually heard it.

Has it been 19 years? I've now lived to see another space shuttle blow up, the Concorde on fire, and the World Trade Center/Pentagon hit by jet airplanes. Unreal to say the least.

[silverleaf]

Full length video of the Challenger mission -
"The Day the Earth Stood Still"
http://www.datamanos2.com/challenger/the_day.html

[digger48]

I found this tribute- the music and seeing and hearing President Reagan brought me to tears..

"....and touched the face of God..." always touches me.

[al baby]

Thats what I thought. Feels like 2 years ago oh wait that was Colombia sad days indeed time to get a new system on line

[GSWarrior]

I was behind the wheel of a Space Age Delivery Service vehicle on Kearny Mesa Road in San Diego listening to the radio.

[phancypants]

I was 5-years-old. They let us watch it on TV at school.

We were very freaked out by it. One of my very clear early memories.

[FDNYRHEROES]

I was working for a bank outside of Chicago back in 1986. We all gathered around the radio listening in disbelief. I was still riding a high because the Chicago Bears had just won the Super bowl a few days before. Talk about highs and lows. My how time flies.

It was back to back lows for NE Pats Fans at that time. The Pats lost that SB, a Pats player drug scandal broke the news the next day, and then came the Challenger disaster on Tuesday...

[M Kehoe]

Do you remember where you were, 19 years ago today? "Challenger, go with throttle up.."

Yep. I was walking on Main St. at 22nd Ave. in Richmond VA and it was 10 degrees outside, coming back from lunch at the Texas Wisconsin Border cafe, when one of my employees told me about it.

May God rest their souls.

5.56mm

[76834]

Thats what I thought. Feels like 2 years ago oh wait that was Colombia sad days indeed time to get a new system on line

Remember that one too.
Was watching Fox news, they said the shuttle would be passing over my area (CenTex)
Stepped outside, looked up and saw the widest contrail in my life, stretched from horizon to horizon and seemed to be a mile wide.
Then heard on TV that they had lost contact.
Spent most of the rest of the day looking for debris.

[don-o]

I was a courier in Atlanta - driving my own car, and had WGST on the radio. They broke a bulletin. My next delivery had it on TV.

It had been a cold morning, but shuttle lanuches were about as routine as takeoffs from Hartsfield.

[Betis70]

I was in high school. The teachers didn't tell us what happened, so I didn't see it till I got home.

[Axenolith]

I had woken up in my dorm room in college as my roomate and another guy came in. Bill, the other person, had a reputation for a warped sense of humor and BS'ing and when he said "dude, the space shuttle blew up" I looked over and replied "You know, there's about a million things in this world you could walk in that door and pull off on me but the space shuttle blowing up is just NOT even remotely credible"... After getting dressed later I went down to the TV room, merely to watch the replay of the launch if I could catch it. People were watching it, but no one was commenting and the accident happened far enough into the sequence that I was lulled into a sense that it was okay. Then it blows up, and I was so rocked I jumped up and shouted . I was majorly bummed because I was and have always been a big space program cheerleader and I knew we were toast for years after... Those astronauts are in the league of the greatest explorers ever. I hope eventually that we'll be able to set their tragedy in the context of them taking Americas baby steps to the stars (As opposed to us giving up because we need the money for more electoral largess).