Space Shuttle Challenger, 25 Years Later

A lot of schools had the launch on that day because NASA was flying an elementary school teacher up, and she was going to communicate with kids during the flight, and run experiments kids had thought of (I think one was of spider-webs in 0 gravity). There was a lot of counseling after the accident...

I remember that day very well. I was pretty little, but holy crap, I remember.

 

I was only in diapers when it happened, but it pretty much spelled the end of the economic boom that the Space Program had brought to Vandenberg Air Force Base.

People died.

Sad stuff.

 

Crazy anecdote:

In 2005 at my first visit to the OPF facility as a NASA engineer working on the Shuttle, I walked past a mural signed by hundreds of kids in memorial to Challenger.

I found my name. 19 years after I had stretched out on that elementary school floor to put the pen to the paper.

Cool story bro, I know.

 

I was in second grade and I remember not watching it live, but an administrator came in our classroom and whispered into my teacher's ear. then the entire school gathered in an assembly and talked about the tragedy.

for the record-as a child of the 80's, in 25 years, I had never heard ONE Challenger joke until this morning. talk about poor taste and just uncouth on so many levels.

 

I was in 9th grade typing class (yes, we used to have classes for learning how to type). We weren't watching the feed, but the Principal came on the intercom and announced what happened. Everyone hated him because he was such a hardass, but he actually started to tear up in the middle of his announcement, so we knew it was serious.

It's pretty unsettling reading reports that the astronauts may have been alive and conscious until the moment the cockpit hit the ocean.

 

We were also watching it live in our classroom. Most weren't even paying attention, but when it happened I remember that feeling of not knowing really what just happened, but our teacher started balling and ran out of the room. The principle had to come in and tell us the story. I went home in a complete daze. I kept all of the news papers and still have them today.

 

I was in 8th grade reading when we were told. Friend of mine saw it on the TV in the library on his way back to class and his teacher got mad at him and told him "that's not funny".

 

I heard this story on Morning Edition this morning. Well worth listening to the audio clip at the site:

Astronaut's Brother Recalls A Man Who Dreamed Big

Ronald McNair was one of the astronauts killed 25 years ago on Jan. 28, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. As his brother recalls, McNair's life was all about exploring boundaries — and exceeding them.

McNair was only the second African-American to visit space. He'd been there once before, aboard a Challenger mission in 1984. On that trip, he played his saxophone while in orbit.

As his older brother, Carl, recalls, McNair started dreaming about space in South Carolina, where he grew up. And he wanted to study science. But first, he needed to get his hands on some advanced books. And that was a problem.

"When he was 9 years old, Ron, without my parents or myself knowing his whereabouts, decided to take a mile walk from our home down to the library," Carl tells his friend Vernon Skipper.

The library was public, Carl says — "but not so public for black folks, when you're talking about 1959."

"So, as he was walking in there, all these folks were staring at him — because they were white folk only — and they were looking at him and saying, you know, 'Who is this Negro?'

"So, he politely positioned himself in line to check out his books.

"Well, this old librarian, she says, 'This library is not for coloreds.' He said, 'Well, I would like to check out these books.'

"She says, 'Young man, if you don't leave this library right now, I'm gonna call the police.'

StoryCorps Carl McNair says that his brother, astronaut Ronald McNair, saw possibilities where others only saw closed doors.
"So he just propped himself up on the counter, and sat there, and said, 'I'll wait.' "

The librarian called the police — and McNair's mother, Pearl.

When the police got to the library, Carl says, "Two burly guys come in and say, 'Well, where's the disturbance?'

"And she pointed to the little 9-year-old boy sitting up on the counter.

"And he [the policeman] says, 'Ma'am, what's the problem?'

By then, the boys' mother was on her way, Carl says.

"She comes down there praying the whole way there: 'Lordy, Jesus, please don't let them put my child in jail.' And my mother asks the librarian, 'What's the problem?' "

"He wanted to check out the books and, you know, your son shouldn't be down here," the librarian said, according to Carl.

"And the police officer said, 'You know, why don't you just give the kid the books?'

"And my mother said, 'He'll take good care of them.' "

So, the librarian reluctantly handed over the books. And then, Carl says, "my mother said, 'What do you say?' "

And Ron answered, "Thank you, ma'am."

Eventually, Ronald McNair graduated from North Carolina A&T State University. And in 1976, he earned a Ph.D. from MIT, in physics. Soon after that, he applied to join NASA's astronaut program.

For Carl McNair, watching his brother's career was like seeing something from the TV shows of his youth.

"As youngsters, a show came on TV called Star Trek," he says. "Now, Star Trek showed the future — where there were black folk and white folk working together."

And back in the 1960s, that premise didn't seem believable, Carl says.

"I just looked at it as science fiction, 'cause that wasn't going to happen, really," he says. "But Ronald saw it as science possibility."

In that era, NASA's astronauts were celebrities — people like Neil Armstrong.

"So how was a colored boy from South Carolina — wearing glasses, never flew a plane — how was he gonna become an astronaut?" Carl says.

"But Ron was one who didn't accept societal norms as being his norm, you know? That was for other people. And he got to be aboard his own Starship Enterprise."

Ronald McNair was 35 at the time of the Challenger tragedy. To mark the anniversary of his death, a ceremony will be held in Lake City on Friday, in which the building that housed McNair's childhood library will be named after him.

The list of people whose lives McNair touched includes Charles Bolden. Like McNair, Bolden grew up in South Carolina, pursued a career in science and became an astronaut. Bolden is now the administrator of NASA.

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo.


http://www.npr.org/2011/01/28/133275198/astronauts-brother-recalls-a-man-who-dreamed-big

 

Yeah...it's a difficult thing to think about. Especially in regards to Sharon.

 

I was in 5th grade. I remember watching it in my science class. I can still remember that exact moment and trying to figure out what exactly was happening.

 

I was only 3 years old so do not recall this.

It is so sad reading reports that they were probably alive.

 

Spoiler

Nothing bad is in here.

R.I.P

 

I was in Ms Ripley class and we were all watching it on a TV and it was a surreal moment after it happened, my teacher began quitely weeping.

 

I apparently fell out of my crib that day and I have a thin scar on my eyebrow where hair will not grow.

Or at least my parents told me that's what happened.

 

I was a freshman in highschool, boy do I feel old now. I remember some jokes but won't tell them. Even as a nerdy odd freshman they seemed it poor taste.

This was a tragedy. They fact that space travel is inherently very very very dangerous doesn't lesson that. There is a line in The Right Stuff about strapping yourself to a bomb and riding the explosion which is pretty much what getting launched into space is. When Challenger blew up shuttle launches had almost become routine but as Challenger and later Columbia showed they were anything but.

 

Was 8 years old and we all watched the launch in class. It was a sad day for all of us. I remember the teacher just turning it off after the explosion.

 

I was a junior in high school.

 

There was an excellent film on the history of NASA that was on Channel 8 the other day.

This is what happens when you have so much success, and you become complacent. The act of travelling into space and returning safely, by this point, had become seemingly easy and routine. NASA was looking at something like 2 launches a month or so at this point. This led to a certain amount of complacency and then an accident.

In fact, the ONLY reason the Challenger was watched by so many people (most launches at this point were only briefly mentioned on the evening news) was that Christa McAuliffe.

Like most major accidents, it was a series of poor decisions and outside influences that were not taken into account.

The O-ring that failed and ultimately led to the destruction of the vehicle was subjected to freezing temperatures the night before, the first time that the vehicle had been subjected to freezing on the ground before a launch. This caused concerns by engineers, but flight managers chose to ignore them.

The worst thing about the accident is the fact that the Astronauts were most likely alive during the free fall (although most likely passed out).

The second worse thing about the accident is that it created a poltical environment to which the government was more unwilling than ever to take risks. People had forgotten that exploring space is risky, dangerous, and insanely difficult. NASA had never lost astronauts on an actual space mission before either.

This led to the fleet being grounded and torn apart, and rather than set back space exploration by 2.5 years, it probably set it back by 25 years.

To compund problems the Columbia mission, in 2003, happened. Again, Space launches are commonplace, complacency sets in.

Mission and ground control KNEW that foam had struck the shuttles wing and the decision was made to not check. Again, an avoidable accident that set us back another decade at least.

So at this point, because of these two accidents, we are probably at least 3 decades behind where we should be in space exploration.

 

I was in the 7th grade and I remember vividly watching the launch as it was such a big deal that an elementary school teacher was with the astronauts. When things went so wrong, it was such a weird moment. It was like everyone was looking at each other and then the teacher and were thinking, "What is going on??" Bewilderment would be a good word to describe the atmosphere at that moment.

And I definitely do NOT remember any stupid and tasteless jokes about this. I was, of course, appalled when I saw the other thread (that is thankfully locked and closed) but honestly when I saw who started it, I am not surprised. Some people really do NOT get it and that guy is at the top of the list.