Our heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.
Posted on 01/28/2010 12:50:25 PM PST by free1977free
Where were you on January 28th, 1986? Were you in a classroom watching the first teacher go into space? Do you remember how you felt when you saw the Challenger explode soon after it left the earth?
CNN reports that about 17% of Americans were watching when the disaster occurred. One hour later, 85% had heard the news. It is estimated that 48% of 9-13 year-olds were watching.
Teacher Christa Macauliffe was supposed to be the first teacher in space, but she never made it. She died in the explosion along with the six astronauts accompanying her.
Most of today's moms are old enough to remember this event. Today is a good day to share this historical story with your children. It's also a good way to share an emotional story from your own childhood.
Where was I? I had just gotten out of the dentist where I had had a root canal done and heard the news on the car radio. I rushed home and told my husband to turn on the news and we watched in horror as they played the footage over and over again,
I distinctly remember being incredulous at the media’s continued insistence that the astronauts had died instantly.
Very moving speech by President Reagan. Written, I believe, by Peggy Noonan.
I hope you stopped riding motorcycles before you lost a leg, or two.
I was in JSC Building 30 checking tapes out of the SPF to do the next Recon build. I rolled my shopping cart full of tapes into the MCC PCZ and over to the M&O console. No one was saying a word. I had to go around the console to see what was on the video monitor.
Eating lunch in the high school cafeteria. Kid across from me was listening to a radio, got a funny look, and told me what happened. I grabbed the radio and heard “...Christa McAuliffe is dead.” I considered jumping on a table and announcing the news to the room, but figured most would either be too confused or apathetic.
I was in a meeting with our department execs when someone came in and told us what happened. We brought a TV into the room and sat there and watch stunned for I don’t know how long. We dropped the meeting and finally returned to our offices to ponder the magnitude of what we had just witnessed.
OH...I remember clearly....I was sitting in my car prior to going in to teach a college class.....I had to go in there and inform the waiting students of what had just happened.....
I remember when a recitation of that poem, accompanied by inspiring video of a jet taking off into a beautiful blue sky, was the daily sign-off for a local station. Now that I’m older, I can never stay up late enough to know if it’s still being used. :-)
I was so nuts about space my mom let me stay home from kindergarten to watch the launch. I vividly remember saying to my mom, “They’re alright, aren’t they. They got parachutes.”
: (
Poor woman. Lots of unintentional irony there, considering her daughter's life was thrown away promoting that very thing.
I was in the USAF at Squadron Officer’s School in Montgomery, Alabama. We were between lectures and milling around in the hallway outside the auditorium when the rumor raced through the crowd. The next lecturer gave us the formal announcement of the disaster.
BTW, my husband is an engineer. The minute he heard that the fuel tanks had O rings as seals he said that that would have been the cause of the leak and the explosian. It was weeks before NASA agreed that that was the case. Of course it was exacerbated by the cold weather that morning. I think that it is a scandal that they made the engineers and the company that produced the fuel tanks the scape goat.
The engineer in charge advised against the launch because of the cold weather, but PR types at NASA over-rode his recommendation because they were embarrassed that the launch had been scrubbed several times that week already.
The managers overode the engineers who knew the SRB “O” rings would probably fail in 24 degree temperature. I wonder if they paid any consequence for overiding the engineers. There was a video of the crew compartment coming out of the gas cloud virtually intact and rumors had it the crew survived till impact. A sad day indeed. Thank God we had President Reagan then rather than the total joke we have now. God help us.
I was in a primary school with TVs turned on all over because of Christa. They were turned off pretty fast.
Here is a song that mentions them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ryd_p20XEU
President and Nancy Reagan and families of the "Challenger" victims at the memorial service for the space shuttle crew in Houston, Texas. January.31 1986.
I was arriving at C-0 Launch Control Facility to receive the last part of my Alternate Command Post crew training to upgrade to ACP/SCP crew.
A light snow was falling and I got out of the Suburban and walked into the Support Building. I stood by the Security Control Center door and saw the TV in the lounge and the pictures were of the pieces falling into the ocean.
The facility manager told me the shuttle had just blown up. There was dead silence in that support building.
Was working at Bendix at the time and because we were part of STS, we watched all launches and landings.
I will never forget that image. Never. God bless them all.
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