Challenger: 30 years later

It's weird. I don't really get too up or down in my day to day life. But when I see things like this happen, for whatever reason, it hits me a lot harder than I think. Somehow I feel a collective pain for those lost.

I think I've mentioned this before somewhere on the forums, but right when 9/11 happened, I was just in shock. Years after, I would feel the pain, but never shed a tear. I went to NYC and Ground Zero. I straight up cried.

 

Certainly not. They are my prey.

 

I worked at NASA/JSC at the time, so I was sitting at desk, crying like a baby. Its was all of jobs to get that crew home, safe and sound.

 

It still blows my mind that most, if not all, of the crew were likely alive through the entire explosion and descent. I cannot imagine what the hell would be going through your mind in the situation. The most exciting and proud moment of your life coming to an abrupt and terrifying halt resulting in a 2-3 minute free fall to your doom.

Christ.

 

1st grade at school.

One of the lasting memories I have from my real early childhood. I remember watching it at school on a rolled in tv.... not really understanding what was going on, but knowing it was not good.

 

I was at home for some reason, not at school (I would have been in 1st grade), watching. I wasn't sick, and my parents wouldn't have let me stay home just to watch a space shuttle launch, so I'm still trying to figure out if it was Casimir Pulaski Day or MLK Day or President's Day or something like that.

I watched the news with my parents every night during what was a very heady time, even with no major wars, so I just thought that this was something that happened every so often, which is pretty messed up.

 

I will forever remember that day. I was working 3rd shift back then and had just gotten home and turned on the TV. The explosion was broadcast live on network television. When it happened, there was a pronounced pause of disbelief and I recall Mission Control saying "Obviously we've just experienced a malfunction! I recall screaming at the set "MALFUNCTION??? - The whole thing just blew up! The TV cameras continued to show the smoking wreckage of Challenger as it plummeted back to earth in what felt like an eternity. I was so dumbstruck, I couldn't move or utter a sound for nearly an hour afterwards. I just set there staring at the TV in deep shock.

 

This happened a couple of weeks after I was born.

My dad kept the front page of the Chronicle or Post (Can't remember which one) and I remember always bringing it to school for show and tell.

 

I was at Lovett Elementary, for whatever reason we always watched the shuttle launches. I remember it taking a while for everyone to realize what was happening because no one was watching all that closely because we had seen so many shuttle launches before. Once it was pretty clear that not only was something was wrong, but that the shuttle blew up, the teacher turned the TV off like nothing happened and tried to go on with whatever we were doing that day.

It was pretty smooth of her, but it didn't really work because the principal addressed the situation over the speakers which started a bunch of conversation that she was probably trying to avoid.

We paid a LOT closer attention to the next shuttle launch.

 

Too young to remember if I watched it live, but I sure damn well knew what an o-ring was in elementary school.

 

I recall I was in ninth grade at good old Clear Lake High School (had their own 9th grade building before you went to the adjacent bigger building for grades 10 - 12). Alison Smith, daughter of pilot Mike Smith...one of the astronauts who died that day, was in my ninth grade Biology class (not at the time it happened but that year). I recall most everyone was gathered and watching the shuttle take off in an auditorium. Don't recall much in the aftermath...other than silence and shock.

My Dad used to drink a few after work with Ellison Onizuka (the mission specialist) on occasion at one of the NASA after hours hangouts in Clear Lake.

Who can forget when Reagan came to town and gave that speech at Johnson Space Center where he ended it with:

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”

 

Either second or third grade. Two kids from each grade at school (forget what we did to get picked) were allowed to go to the library to watch the shuttle taking off. I was one of the two in my class. Still remember the librarian screaming when it happened...

 

I was 4. Eating a bowl of cereal and watching Thundercats and Voltron. Then my grandmother came in and changed the channel to the news.

 

I went to get a newspaper as a souvenir the morning after my first child was born. The headline was "100,000 killed in massive tsunami."