It’s fascinating just to see where each of us was, on a specific day 30 years ago.
Graduate school. I walked into the grad dorm common area and saw it on TV, probably about 10 minutes after it had happened. I was obviously saddened, but I remember thinking that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Astronaut deaths happened with Apollo, it’s a dangerous business. Space nerd that I was, I hoped it would not mean that everything would be shut down for a decade (fortunately, it only delayed launches for about 2 years).
That said, I was always disappointed in the shuttle program. I had followed the US space program since the late 60’s as a kid, and by then I thought we should have had bases on the moon. It was really cool, but the shuttle orbited in what can only charitably be called “outer space”. It was more like “really high”. And now we have nothing for human space flight, other than hitching rides with the Russians to a low-earth-orbit tinker-toy. But that’s a topic for another thread…
Replace graduate with undergraduate and that’s my story. The interesting sidenote is that since I was going to college in Houston I managed to take a class with an astronaut who did a PhD during the down time.
I was in fourth grade. We weren’t watching the launch, but we all knew about Christa McAuliffe and imagined our teachers going up into space (we couldn’t). In the middle of class, the principal opened the door and told us: “The Challenger shuttle exploded.” I was a space geek. Subscribed to space magazines and thought about being an astronaut. My friends looked at me first, because they knew it was my thing. We didn’t know what to say, just stared at each other for awhile. The class carried on, the school day finished. I saw Reagan’s address that night and of course watched the explosion footage over and over and over because you couldn’t avoid it. If you haven’t seen it for awhile, Reagan’s speech is pretty remarkable. Very clearly from Peggy Noonan’s pen, but also with that inimitable Reagan performance that made him, for kids at the time like me, the definition of “president.”
I was in school, as well. My class was watching it live. Mesmerized by the horror, I vividly recall watching one piece tumble out of the smoke and fall through the air. I had no clue until much later that it was the crew cabin with them still inside. That just added to the horror.
I was in 5th grade I think. Math class. The principal spoke over the intercom system to tell us the Challenger had exploded. I remember immediately looking at my watch so I would remember the time. I recall it as being something like 11:35 or 37 am Central although I’m now unsure of the exact minute.
I still can’t watch video of the launch from take off to explosion without my eyes misting up.
I was in sixth grade, and being a little asshole, thought it would be funny to quickly estimate the teachers in our school and say, “One down, 24 to go.”
I then got to spend the next few days being questioned about why I was so specific in using the number 24, why I had said such a thing, etc.
(In retrospect, though it was a bit of an overreaction as I was just being a snarky, asshole kid, I deserved every bit of the reaction for being a snarky, asshole kid.)
SlyFrog, you weren’t alone. By the end of the day, I think every sixth grader had at least 2 or 3 Challenger jokes – all of which were in terribly bad taste and extremely funny to a twelve year old. I think that sort of humor is one way we insulate ourselves from tragedy.
I was eight years old and saw it at home with my mother and father due to a snow day. Both of my parents were teachers and my mother had applied for the program that selected McAuliffe. We went to Florida and saw the Challenger at the space center over Christmas break, a few weeks before launch - it was cold even then. It was a very rough day.
It’s the other one, but February 1st has come and gone, and I feel like the Columbia disaster can be mentioned in this thread. Ars Technica has an amazing article.
I think for some reason we had a half-day at school that day (6th grade) and when I got home around 11:30 AM my mother was telling us what had happened. I spent the next several hours just watching NBC news and getting to know Tom Brokaw really well.
I can think of at least 3 Challenger jokes (that I learned that day, or the days after) right off the bat.
Mr. Jaworski, who would be my 8th grade science teacher (and whose brother was the local scoutmaster, in case anyone cares), applied for the teacher-in-space program and afterward wrote an editorial for the Berkshire Eagle saying something to the effect of ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’ However, he was extremely overweight and surely never would have been selected anyway…
I didn’t get along with that teacher very well. When I (rather snottily) pointed out that he had incorrectly stated Stonehenge was 2000 years old, whereas it was actually closer to 3500 years old, he tetchily responded: “You wanna come up here and teach the class?” He did introduce me to Carl Sagan and ‘Cosmos,’ though.
I hadn’t quite been born yet, but my dad was on his way home from work at Pratt & Whitney when he saw the explosion in his rear view mirror. I can’t even imagine.
Freshman year of HS, French class. Sitting next to Dawn. I had a crush on her. I still remember her light-pink lipstick. She would occasionally talk to me, which was a bonus. That’s when I first heard the rumor that it had blown up. There were no official announcements from the school. I rushed home after school and turned on my 14" B&W TV and spent the rest of the day watching the news. I was devastated.
Like many here I was a space geek. I had a subscription to Ad Astra. I played a lot of Project Space Station on my C=128, although I was terrible at it. Having a pirated copy with no manual probably didn’t help. I dreamed of going to Space Camp, but of course my parents could never afford it.
We had such high hopes and expectations back then. I believe NASA had a goal to launch shuttles weekly (or was it monthly?) though they never met either goal (a goal which you could strive to in PSS). When the Challenger blew up it was like the dream ended, the innocence was lost. It was a painful reminder that space travel is hard.
Oddly, I didn’t feel a thing when the Columbia disintegrated. Was it because they had already completed their mission? No. I think it was because the part of me that cared, the part that was emotionally invested, died on January 28th, 1986.