Remembering the Challenger - 19 Years

[RaceBannon]

Cuban Missile Crisis
The day of Kennedy getting shot
The day Tony Conigliaro got hit with a ball
Apollo 11 moon landing
Apollo 13
Nixon resigning
US Embassy being overrun in Tehran
Rescue Attempt
Reagan getting shot
Marine Barracks Beruit
Challenger
9/11

[john316]

JSC bldg 9. Heard the alarm go off on the telementry printer when we lost the signal

[RetroSexual]

I remember waking up that morning, early, and NPR (literally the only thing available at the time in Houghton, Michigan) was playing an interview with Christa McAuliffe. Interesting, I thought, and I headed out on a long drive down to Lansing.

Later in the day, I was pulling the a drive-through McDonald's in St. Ignace, Michigan, when I heard the launch and the subsequent explosion. The rest of the drive that day was very cold and lonely.

It takes some kind of chutzpah to strap yourself to tons of liquid oxygen, then light it off. I pray that they rest in peace.

[Dont Mention the War]

Later when we watched it on TV that night, they made comments about how we all had our faces covered in disbelief that it could have been our beloved teacher. In truth, all our faces were covered to hide the tears of laugher at our then white-as-a-ghost teacher.

LOL!

I was in 10th grade. Whatever class I was in for 4th period, we weren't watching the launch. The shuttle blew up at around 11:38. Fourth period ended, and I got to my locker at 11:45. It was at that moment that I heard the guy at the locker next to mine have the following exchange with his friend:

Student 1: Hey, did you hear about the space shuttle?

Student 2: Yeah, people are just dying to get on!

Both: HAHAHAHAHA!

It was at that point I realized that perhaps something had happened.

The joke sucked, but seven minutes from disaster to humor isn't too bad for a bunch of dorky high school students. Thankfully the jokes got better over the next few days.

[nicmarlo]

I was at work, which had a t.v. We must have gotten a call to put it on...and we stood there watching in disbelief.....

[Rca2000]

I have got to confess, I even made a couple of the jokes myself, somethnig about "what goes up in one piece, and comes down in a million" after I got to work that evening.I had even talked with some of the employees, on how it may had been possible, if it had been terrorism(remember, at the time, Lybia was our enemy)

One of my cowokers ,who was friendly with me at the time(and later became a close friend) heard this, and she scolded me harshly for doing so(and rightfully so, how juvinelle of me).

But right away, I knew that somehow, a hydrogen leak, or something was resopnsible for the explosion. soon after, they revealed the burn-through problem, caused by bad o-rings.

[Severa]

Like Clemenza, I was roughly the same age, 9 going on 10 (born 24 Nov '76) and home sick from school. I watched it happen and Mom didn't believe me at first when I told her what I saw, then she sat with me and we watched the TV coverage.

[HitmanLV]

I sent a brief email honoring our fallen astronauts to my email list today - almost everyone emailed me back and said they had forgotten the day but they vividly remember the event. A tragedy.

[stratman1969]

19 Years !?!?!? I can't believe it's been that long. I was a junior at Harlingen High School and in my American History class. Across the hall, I heard a loud "what?" from my sophomore history teacher. I thought she was having trouble with a student or something like that. A couple minutes later, she knocked on our door, then came in and told us what had happened. Since I lived a few blocks away from school, I usually went home for lunch. I went home and watched the news. The rest of the day everyone was really numb. No one felt like doing any work and I didn't feel like doing homework that night.

I'd always heard people mention where they were when JFK was shot, Pearl Harbor was bombed, etc. I guess I somewhat naievely thought the Challenger would be the one moment I'd always remember where I was until the day I died. Now there's 9/11/01 and the Columbia tragedy.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

I was 21, in my senior year at college. It was a Tuesday and I didn't have a class until afternoon, so I was sleeping in. When I woke up I turned on the television as I walked by it on my way to the bathroom. As I spent a few minutes in the bathroom it gradually penetrated into my brain that I was hearing Dan Rather on the TV. At first I thought it was just a regular mid-morning news update (which he sometimes did back then) but then I realized he was reading off the names of the shuttle astronauts. I wandered back out to see what he was talking about. It must have been the first new flash on CBS, because it took a few minutes for them to show the video.

The first time I heard the ground controller say, "Obviously a major malfunction," I remember thinking, "No sh*t, Sherlock."

After watching the news coverage for a few hours, I did eventually go to class. I'd like to say that the shock and sadness I felt changed my life, but it didn't really. Unfortunately.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

the only thing available at the time in Houghton, Michigan

Wow, small world. I was in my senior year at MTU (see my post #90 on this thread).

[killjoy]

The joke sucked, but seven minutes from disaster to humor isn't too bad for a bunch of dorky high school students. Thankfully the jokes got better over the next few days.

The science teacher I mentioned didn't find them too funny. He threatened anyone who told them with indoor suspension. I think it just encouraged us more. I don't think they ever followed through with any of the suspension threats. If they had, I am sure I would have been there for a few days.

[killjoy]

The day of Kennedy getting shot

WHAT!?!?! Kennedy got shot!?!?

[JenB]

I'm too young to actually remember it, but I remember learning about them, and the Apollo 1 crew, as I started to get interested in space. What I remember is my mother said something about the schoolteacher, something along the lines of "she shouldn't have even been there".

That stuck in my craw for years. The point of the space industry ought to be to get ordinary people into space, to do their jobs there. It ought to be not that much more of a deal than getting on a jet and going to Europe. I wonder how much damage this did to our space program - no. The space program is the damage itself. Space Ship One should have flown thirty years ago. At this rate I'll be dead before I have a chance to go into space.

[Destro]

I was a kid - what bugs me is that the adults - instead of admitting the shuttle program was stunting space flight and exploration - spent all their resources on the shuttle program.

[Rca2000]

I understand your despair. At one time, I had desires of being an astronaut myself, as I love space,technology, nuclear energy, and things of that nature. I have been to the cape a number of times, and witnessed the may 99 shuttle liftoff in person.And, instead of dice, or some other thing hanging from the rear-view mirror of my van, I have a NASA badge there.

Now, I am 37 going on 38, and that chance (which I never really had anyway, only a dream) has slipped away. but you know, the shuttle is really a pi$$ poor spacecraft, I mean, it CAN'T get out of the EARTH'S orbital bondaries, let alone go to the moon, or another planet.

[wolficatZ]

I remember driving down 1-26 that afternoon and almost everyone had their headlights on in mourning.

[tubebender]

Ping...

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Oh, I don't know, a lot can be done in 30 years. Once the private sector starts getting involved (and it will... not all of the hi-tech billionaires are liberal idiots like Bill Gates) things will take off (so to speak). After all, SpaceShip One went from concept to space in almost no time at all...

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

I was driving I-4 westbound toward Orlando and pulled off to the side of the Interstate to join a red pickup truck in front of me and a car behind me. The radio said there was one minute to go to liftoff. I was just minutes from my home in Longwood near Wekiva State Park near the St Rt 434 exit. I could not make it home to watch on TV, but sitting here and eyeballing live would do just fine, I thought.

I rolled my window down, as the guy in the pickup truck in front of me did, and gazed to the left, eastbound, where I would soon see the Shuttle lift toward the heavens.

As many have said, I will never forget that blue sky. It was so erie in that it was one of the most beautiful clear blue skies I have ever seen.

When the Shuttle lifted off, it seemd so much closer to the naked eye than normal in the Orlando suburb--why, I will never know. Perhaps because of the cold made the air so clear. Perhaps because the gods zommed in for the three of us in our cars to watch seven new angels enter heaven.

As Challenger climbed, the radio station had already done its few seconds of liftoff coverage then already returned to normal programming, confident that all was well with Challenger.

When the Shuttle blew up, I immediately turned on the radio station. At first I was not sure what I saw I was so stunned. One thing told me it blew up. One thing told me I was just seeing things. About thirty seconds after it exploded, the radio station cut away from its rambling morning show and sounded that loud siren and then the words BULLETIN......BULLETIN! WE ARE GOING LIVE TO THE KENNEDY SPACE CENTER!

With those words, I knew then that it was the former, not the latter, and that indeed the Shuttle had blown up. I had already realized that by then since the debris and the contrails produced a sight that was unmistakeable.

After watchng the big "question mark" in the sky for a while produced by the path of the solid booster rockets before they were detonated, I started my engine to head home and watch the very tragic news on TV.

I will never forget the car behind me pulling out first and then the red pickup truck pulling away as I then moved back on the Interstate also. I will always wonder what was going through their minds as they watched what I watched unfold right before their eyes. We never spoke a word to each other as we stayed in our cars. Our thoughts were just to ourselves. I think we were all too sad and shocked to get out and say something.

For the better part of thirty minutes, the contrails remained in the sky above my home in the shape of a large "question mark".