I was home sick from high school. Not sick-sick, really; but I had a cold or something and was on the couch, watching TV. Being a space nut (of course), I was looking forward to seeing a shuttle launch; being me, I had gotten distracted from the actual launch until just after it started and so tuned in just after the explosion. It took me a couple of minutes to process. I remember my mother asking me* if there was any chance that the astronauts could have jettisoned safely. I had to explain to her that it… wasn’t likely. One of the first really adult conversations that I ever had with my parents, really, and it frankly sucked.
That was a rough day. It’d have been even rougher if I had realized at the time that the Challenger explosion was going to result in the eventual end of our manned space program. But that’s a well-chewed bone at this point.
RIP.
Moe Lane
*Mom’s a smart woman, but she’s not a space nut.
I remember that I was at Cape Canaveral and watched it in person.
.
And I say “remember” because I honestly remember being there, but everyone tells me that I wasn’t there. When I look back on the event, I don’t see a TV screen and I remember looking around out in the open with everyone in the crowd asking if that was supposed to happen.
.
I was five at the time, so my memory can be called into question. However why would my mind make something up like that?
My office mate was a British ex-pat. He said something like “sorry _your_ space shuttle blew up”. I don’t think it was meant to be mean.
As a space nut, I remember being, in a little corner of my mind, relieved because it was always clear that the shuttle was a kludge that would eventually come badly unstuck. At least that was over with and we could start working on a better system. Thirty years later and we’re still not quite there. Damn.
I was at the Naval Reactors site in Idaho, part of training to become a nuke Machinist Mate. My job that day was “phone watch” in the Machinist shack (studying and answering the phone) when the wife of the lead Machinist Mate called with the news. The lead machinist was a big space buff, and took it kinda hard, when I relayed the news.
I was in fourth grade. Our art teacher had been one of the semi-finalists to go on the shuttle. So everyone in the grade gathered in a meeting to watch the shuttle take off on tv.
Everyone was pretty stunned when the shuttle exploded. I do not think most of the kids could really process it. I certainly did not. They let us sit and watch the tv coverage for the rest of the day.
Don’t be too hard on your mom. I was in an office, listening on the radio, and the radio commentators speculated all day that perhaps the astronauts had survived. It wasn’t until after I got home and watched it that I knew that didn’t happen.
I was a freshman in high school. My history class was taking a test; the teacher was listening to the radio on a set of headphones. When he told us the shuttle had exploded, none of us believed him. (He had a reputation as a bit of a joker.)
I’ve always liked the speech Reagan gave in the aftermath — one of his more beautiful and heartfelt ones, and that’s saying something.
I’m old enough that I remember watching the Apollo 11 launch sitting on the living room carpet. From that moment until the loss of Challenger, I believed the space program would continue to grow and expand and that I would eventually get into space. The day we lost Challenger, I was on my way to work, and I knew instantly that particular dream was dead.
.
That was also one of the seminal moments when I realized that I hated everyone in broadcast media. (It was somewhat later that I realized they felt the same way about me.)
Sophomore Biology (Br. Pettit). Second period, just before the bell. John Przbleglic was flicking water in my face from a puddle on the table. I was just getting up to physically kick his ass when the Principal (Br. Toole) came on the PA. The rest of the day was nothing but TVs in the classroom, reliving the moment, over and over again.
I was in my dorm room in Chapel Hill, skipping one class or another. A friend from downstairs walked into my room, never said a word – just turned on the TV and sat down.
I was teaching 10th grade English in a small Indiana town. I think we had practically the whole school in the auditorium to watch the launch. We were all so proud a teacher was going up.
I honestly can’t remember if we just let everyone sit there or we tried to have classes.
Everyone on the faculty spent the next couple of weeks making really bad jokes. A way to deal, I suppose.
I was in grade school in Singapore when it happened. I didn’t see it on TV but when I got to school the next morning everyone was talking in hushed tones – not at all usual. I asked what was going on and was told about the explosion. As for the bad jokes: NASA – needs another seven astronauts. How did they know the teacher on the shuttle had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders.