T O P I C ��� R E V I E W
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Jay the Obscure
Member # 19
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posted
The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during launch on this date 20 yeas ago.
My memory of the event is that I was in high school at the time watching the launch on television when the disaster happened.
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Mark Nguyen
Member # 469
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posted
Sixth grade for me. I was in school, when one of the teachers, who knew I was a fan of real-life space stuff, told me. I thought at first that Challenger had exploded in orbit; then I got home and saw the footage on TV, and was pretty devastated for days afterwards.
Mark
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Hobbes
Member # 138
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posted
1986... I was 5 at the time so I don't recall any of it.
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Jason Abbadon
Member # 882
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posted
I was in Junior High and in the caffeteria when some ass kid ran up and cheerily announced "The shuttle just blew up!" I looked at the TV's that were on but mute and saw that odd shaped explosion cloud and recall not understanding what I was looking at.
...of course, it was followed by the innane jokes of the day (the Truly Tasteless books were big back then).
Equally sad is the promises on improving safety and quality inspections after the disaster- only to have almost the exact same promises repeated after the Columbia was lost. I bet Science Channel has a special on it tonight. [ January 28, 2006, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: Jason Abbadon ]
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Omega
Member # 91
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posted
...Columbia?
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Siegfried
Member # 29
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posted
I was in first grade at the time. I remember watching the news footage, but I don't think we were watching the launch live or anything.
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Jason Abbadon
Member # 882
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posted
quote: Originally posted by Omega: ...Columbia?
Der, yes. I was thinking of making a "notify the Discovery on subspace" joke and that just sorta happened.
Drugs: stay away from them kiddies!
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Balaam Xumucane
Member # 419
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posted
West coast kiddie here. We found out that morning in Junior High, during English class. I hated that teacher, but I do recall we were taken into a special room with TV and watched the news coverage of the launch. I was pretty up on the launch schedule back then. I knew it was going up that day. My reaction was more of a non-reaction. I think I just couldn't believe it...
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The Ginger Beacon
Member # 1585
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posted
I was 78 days old, so I don't realy remember it.
I don't know what the coverage was like in the UK to be honest. Any one on this side of the pond remember?
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Topher
Member # 71
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posted
Similar situation to TGB there, only I was 1.
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B.J.
Member # 858
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posted
Sixth grade for me (11 years old). I happened to be home because of a teacher work day. Even then, I was very much into everything space-related, so I was really excited to finally get to see a shuttle launch "live". My parents were in disbelief when I called them at work.
The next time I watched a live (and in person this time!) launch 10 years later, I was just a bit jumpy.
B.J.
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Saltah'na
Member # 33
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posted
3rd Grade for me from Canada.
I think it was all over the news, the Canadian television networks were blaring all about it. I'm not exactly sure how I reacted to it, but one of the first things I wanted to know is how it exploded.... I had a very curious mind back then.....
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AndrewR
Member # 44
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posted
20 years! I remember racing out to the tv in the morning (it was probably on the morning news cause it most probably happened during our night time) and seeing what had happened. I had just turned 7. CRAP! That makes me 27! heh. Remember those space pioneers!
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AndrewR
Member # 44
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posted
Very Apt... from a link in the Ye Olde Desktop Background thread: http://www.tlwdata.de/images/tlw_tribute.jpg
Have a look at their trek stuff - I've never seen it before - It's fantastic! Were these people involved with the show at anytime - they seem to have good meshes (well they look good - I'm no mesh expert!).
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Jay the Obscure
Member # 19
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posted
Well, here I am apparently almost at middle age compared to you young folk.
20 years ago I'd have been 18.
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Lee
Member # 393
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posted
15. I can't remember much of the coverage in the UK news, but think I heard about the explosion on John Craven's Newsround! If he was doing it that week, or at all by then.
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Peregrinus
Member # 504
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posted
'Nother 12-year-old 6th-grader here. I got to school, walked into my Humanities Block classroom, and one of my classmates said "Did you hear? The space shuttle exploded!" and I said "No it didn't." with as much 'quit-yanking-my-chain' scorn as my shy pseudo-adolescent self could muster.
One of my close friends (who was in 9th grade at the time) was watching the launch live in her U.S. History class. She was a mess for days.
And I punched the first kid who told me the "What does NASA stand for?" joke.
BTW, Saltah'na, as far as "why" -- a young senator named J. Danforth Quayle, who was the head of the senate subcommittee overseeing NASA, decided to go with a different o-ring manufacturer who had been lobbying. See, they could make the o-rings more cheaply by making them in two pieces instead of one. And in the frigid weather that January, they shrank, and gapped, and one of them leaked when the fuel burned high enough to reach it, effectively turning a blowtorch onto the external tank. There were a lot of mistakes and errors of judgement, but for pity's sake, the guy with oversight over NASA NEEDS to be a rocket scientist!
--Jonah
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Peregrinus
Member # 504
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posted
Additional: I'm still pissed about being born too late to have been there for Gemini and Apollo -- or even Skylab. I was born the day after Nixon was pardoned.
--Jonah
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B.J.
Member # 858
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posted
I'm sorry I missed that era, too. Although the undertones of the Cold War at its height I could do without.
I was born 16 days before Nixon's resignation (July 23, 1974). My mom was on leave from her job as a writer at the Washington Post. (I think it was the Post. Still significant even if it was another paper.) She said (jokingly, of course) that my birth made her miss the final days of the Watergate scandal.
B.J.
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steve12553
Member # 1809
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posted
I was a full grown adult of 33 when it happened. Someone called and said there'd been and accident and I popped in a tape and recorded the first replay. I was stunned. I didn't much care for the shuttle. I thought it was a big glider. The cold war, if nothing else gave us inspiration to compete in space. (We had to beat those "commie" bastards to the moon). The Challeger tragedy aside from the obvious human loss, slow the impetus to "Boldly Go" into space. It was slowing already but Challenger gave people an excuse to spend money here on earth where "it will do some good". Guess it must have done a great deal of good because we obviously have no more poverty, crime, predjudice or anything else bad, right?
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Sol System
Member # 30
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posted
Now that's the kind of spurious dichotomizing that leads to sound policy.
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