My 11th grade history teacher came flying in the classroom, wheeling one of those big carts with a TV and a VCR that you use to watch videos in class.
She didn’t say a word the whole class, just stared at the TV.
We were 17 so we thought, “hey, free class, no work”.
Come to find out she knew the teacher that was on the shuttle.
I was a member of a group that testified before a Congressional committee in 1971 to get the appropriations necessary to build and operate the Shuttle Transport System. Years later we were in the California manufacturing plant and the engine test stands to make a motion picture film related to the space program. I became concerned when a client and lead facilities engineer working on the Space Shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg AFB expressed his concerns in 1979-1980 due the problems the other engineers, NASA and contractors, were commenting about as problems with the Space Shuttle design and construction. This was very much on my mind as I watched the Challenger disintegrate while watching the television in the lunchroom at work. NASA has proved to be a disappointment in the way it and the U.S. Government have mishandled the space program for most of a lifetime after our early efforts.
I was working at ATT in White Plains and my peer came running through the office yelling the Challenger blew up...it took a few seconds for it to register what she was saying....never forgot this sad anniversary.