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.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
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
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
1986... I was 5 at the time so I don't recall any of it.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
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 ]
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
...Columbia?
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
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.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
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!
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
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...
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
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?
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Similar situation to TGB there, only I was 1.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
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.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
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.....
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
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!
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
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!).
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
Well, here I am apparently almost at middle age compared to you young folk.
20 years ago I'd have been 18.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
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.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
'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
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
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
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
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.
Posted by steve12553 (Member # 1809) on :
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?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Now that's the kind of spurious dichotomizing that leads to sound policy.