[tbpiper]

Thanks for the correction. My first thought was that the IUS had exploded. Never thought there would be a problem with the launch vehicle. But there’s no such thing as a ‘routine’ rocket launch. Each one is unique. Sad day today. It hurts thinking about it.

[Prov1322]

We had just returned to the US after years in Haiti and were living just north of the Space Center. Sometime in August, 1986 some friends (another missionary family) came by for a brief visit on their trip up I-95 and we all decided to do the Space center for the day. I never tired of visiting there.

I will never forget the image of being in the massive Gift Shop, or whatever they called it then, and seeing all of the TV's running the VCR tape of 20+ minutes of debris falling from the sky following the explosion. That tape was for sale at the time and I did not have the presence of mind to buy it right then and there. I returned a few months later and was told that the tape was no longer for sale.