Do you have a memory of the Challenger explosion?

[bertha katzenengel]

On January 25, 1986, a schoolteacher and six astronauts died when the Challenger exploded. The cause was traced to faulty O-rings (like gaskets) that let fuel out of one of the solid booster rockets, ignited, and blew up the big center liquid fuel rocket. (At least that's my memory. I'm not looking it up.)

Not "do you know about it," but, do you remember?

Edited to remember the names of the astronauts I remember

Christa McAuliffe (the teacher)
Judy Resnick
Ron McNair
Dick Scobee

I wish I remember the other three.

[lizziegrace]

1. I do

I was at work and we had a radio that could be played over all the speakers in the office. I heard the news, turned it up so everyone could hear. After they yelled about the noise, I told them to listen... Everyone stood by my desk and listened to the broadcast for an hour. :(

[SeattleGirl]

2. Like it was yesterday. I was getting ready for class, and had

the TV on. The explosion had already happened, but the news was replaying it. I was totally stunned, of course, like so many people were. The really memorable thing for me about that day is that my first class of the day was called "Death and Dying" and we had a speaker coming in that day -- the director of one of the biggest funeral homes in Seattle. Of course, what we talked about was the explosion and the deaths fo the astronauts, but it was just so bizarre that I had that class that day, and we had that particular speaker.

[bertha katzenengel]

3. god . . . I'm old enough to remember men walking on the moon, and RFK's

assassination, but I don't remember those. I was 23 when the Challenger exploded. I was at work. I worked at a Christian radio broadcast, sitting around a large table with nine other women, opening and sorting mail. Our boss - I'll never forget her name, or any face around that table, for that matter - walked through and said "the shuttle just blew up." It took me a while to realize that the astronauts were aboard, but once I did . . . omg.

[Radio_Lady]

86. Bertha, I vaguely recall FDR's death -- I must have been about six.

He said, "I have a terrible headache" and then died.

I remember my parents crying and everybody around the radio to listen to reports.

I was working at NBC for the news department when JFK was shot in November 1963. In the elevator, just after 1 PM Eastern Time, some of the news people started to tell everyone about it. I worked all day, into the night, as well as Saturday to help producers put together film on that terrible event. Then, there was the Jack Ruby killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. That was just a month before I married my ex-husband, December 21, 1963.

[bertha katzenengel]

91. Thank you for these remembrances, Radio Lady.

My dad (not to date you, my dear - sorry) vaguely remembers FDR's death. He remembers a car speeding down the farm road, and then everybody crying.

I love hearing remembrances like yours.

:hi:

[Radio_Lady]

97. You're welcome. I wear my age well, I think. Who's that in the mirror?

It's my mother, that's who!

How old is your Dad? I'm 67 -- on the other side of retirement (yippee!) and enjoying the view over the hill!

[bertha katzenengel]

100. He'll be 67 next month.

:)

I'm lucky. I'll never see my mother in the mirror -- she died at 33! :rofl: (Yes, I have a sense of humor about it; it was a long, long time ago.)

[Radio_Lady]

107. My stepdaughters lost their mother when she was 34. She died

of stomach cancer, leaving three kids, a boy age 13, and two girls, ages 11 and 9.

[bertha katzenengel]

111. Radio Lady, I certainly didn't mean to be insensitive.

I'm sorry.

How old were the children when they became your stepkids?

[av8rdave]

101. 1986.....lessee, I was 27 at the time

I was working as Supervisor of Flying for the day at Wurtsmith AFB...I remember getting out of the SOF vehicle for a pilot's meeting when one of our other pilots came up to me and told me the news. I was so shocked...

[idgiehkt]

4. yes. We were home that day from school

because of snow. I even remember what I was wearing when it happened. And the stupid look on Reagan's face when it happened.

[countingbluecars]

5. I remember it all too well.

I was teaching at a small alternative school at the time. The science teacher was watching the launch with his class. All of the classrooms were on one hallway, so the horrible news spread quickly. We spent the day in shock.

[Jamastiene]

98. My class was watching is as well.

It was a big deal, then it happened. We didn't know what to say or do after that. There was this awkward silence for about 10 seconds, then crying. I'll never forget it.

[benburch]

6. I have memory of John Glenn walking across the tarmac...

...to the Atlas/Mercury rocket.

We watched it on an ancient B&W Philco TV (well it wasn't ancient then) in the corner of the living room.

[StellaBlue]

7. I was in first grade, at home with my grandmother due to chicken pox.

I remember watching it explode on TV and my grandma gasping.

Strangely, my mother was home sick with the chicken pox and saw the JFK assassination on TV.

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. By order of Congress, my answer is now legally "no"

[democracyindanger]

9. My parents recorded it on our then-new VCR.

It was a Betamax.

They still have the tapes, though. Also in the family Betamax collection: Roots, Masada, every single hour of Live Aid and Shogun.

It's gonna be worth money someday, I tells ya.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

10. My dear bertha......

I do remember it..........but I must admit that I do not remember just what the circumstances were..........

Where I was, etc........

I do recall my feelings of complete horror....

[YankeyMCC]

11. Sitting in high school cafe

My wife, then girlfriend comes out and says..."The shuttle just exploded."

I didn't believe her.

[billyskank]

12. Why, of course I remember

I was 10 at the time, it was huge news.

Edit: for some reason it seemed so much more shocking than the second Shuttle disaster. I guess it is a combination of it being the first Shuttle calamity, and the fact that we actually saw the accident.

[xmas74]

69. You and I must be around the same age.

I think I was eleven when it happened. I remember hearing about it at school. We were herded into the gym in my middle school and watched the news.

[calico1]

13. Yes, and I remember exactly what I was doing.

I was at work chit chatting with the office manager early in the am before it got too busy. The other girl that worked in the office came in a little later. She burst into the office and was all choked up so you could hardly understand her. "The challenger blew up and everybody is dead!" she blurted out, then she just burst into tears and sobbing. We were stunned. I mean, how could that be? It was just unbelievable. Nobody could work after that. Next to 9/11 it was the most surreal day I can remember living. I remember going home and everyone seemed to be in some kind of trance. People waiting for busses, people on the bus, etc. Quiet, hardly a word spoken. I got home and my mom and sisters had the TV on and were watching the news. I sat there watching in disbelief. I had remembered watching Christa McAulife especially and her intention to teach a class in space. What an awful day that was....:cry:

[Kickin_Donkey]

14. Ellison Onizuka ...

was another of the seven. Japanese American from Hawaii, just like Ehren Watada.

I was 23, between college graduation and my first real job.

It was mid-morning in California. I was loading spray rigs in a plum orchard. The spray rigs would come around about every 30 minutes, when I would help load the pesticides and mix them with water in the tanks. I'd doze off in the pickup between loads.

I think I turned on the radio just after a rig came in. Apparently the shuttle had just blown up and they'd cut live to a broadcaster on the scene.

[seemunkee]

15. My mom was in Florida watching it from her brothers house.

[dolo amber]

16. Yup...drying my hair in my dorm room

I, like most, was too shocked to move.

[salin]

17. Was off work - watching tv

and saw the tragic footage - again and again and again :cry:

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. Happened on the day of the 8th grade science fair

D'oh.

[Lady Effingbroke]

19. Yes!!! I was 16 in 1986 and attended school (Clear Lake High School

in Houston) with the children of several of the Challenger astronauts (Allison and Scott Smith, the children of Mike Smith, and Darien and Janelle Onizuka, the children of Ellison Onizuka. Janelle was in my graduating class of 1988).

On the day of the launch, teachers had rolled TVs into their classrooms so we could watch since there was a teacher on board the shuttle. (This was before TVs were permanently installed in classrooms - I heard there's now TV in classrooms all day long, Channel One I think its called).

We watched the countdown and liftoff, and, like the rest of the world, were completely fucking flabbergasted when the shuttle exploded.

Needless to say, once we finally comprehended what had happened, grief hit the school (and town) like a tidal wave. Teachers and students were hugging and crying in the halls and school basically shut down for several days. Counselors were brought in to help students and teachers cope with the disaster.

TV news trucks were soon all over the neighborhood where I lived, since several of the astronauts' families lived there as well. It was quite a media circus for 1986.

I clearly remember Ray-gun speaking at the memorial at NASA for the fallen astronauts. It was so strange and sad to see the faces of friends and neighbors on national TV.

So, hell yeah, I remember the Challenger disaster!

[Xipe Totec]

90. I remember that day

I was in a meeting downtown in the old Tenneco building. A buddy of mine, who knew I had worked on Shuttle, came in and told me that the Challenger was destroyed. I felt as if somebody had punched me. I had left the program more than two years before then, but my first thought was to wonder if I had done something wrong. Was it my fault? Did I screw up? It didn't matter that I worked on reentry and the failure occurred during ascent. I still felt connected. I still felt as if, somehow, I was responsible.

On the way home, traveling south on interstate 45, towards League City, all I could see was American flags at half mast on both sides of the freeway. Mile upon mile of flags at half mast, from the fanciest business complexes to the grubbiest garages, all of Houston was in mourning.

As I write this, I look up above my monitor and see a poster hanging on the wall. It is the Challenger on it's maiden flight; the external tank painted white like a bride's gown. On the bottom right hand corner a simple caption reads, congratulations, America.

Sure, I remember that day...

as if it was yesterday.

[Pale Blue Dot]

20. I stayed home from school "sick" that day

I was pretending to be sick (as usual), so I saw the breaking news reports. When my mom came home from her job, I was so excited to tell her the news that I completely forgot to act like I was sick.

[politicat]

21. I was 10. My dad had clearance and we were out of school that week...

So we went to my grandmother's house in Florida and drove up to the site.

We were on Static Test Site Road that day.

[Broken_Hero]

22. yep...

was in...third grade, or second...came home, remember seeing it on the news, my mom being sad, and my dad saying "well, well"...

[WolverineDG]

23. I was on my way home from class

Heard the news as I turned off of Freddy Gonzalez & onto 10th Street. Rushed home, called my dad. He already knew & was upset. He loved the space program, even woke us up when Neil Armstrong was landing on the moon.

dg

[sendero]

24. Yes..

.... I had skipped out of my job to run some kind of errand. I heard it on the radio. It made me really sad.

[GOPisEvil]

25. Hell yes. January of my senior year of high school.

I came back to campus from lunch and it was all anyone could talk about in Spanish class. We didn't do that day's lesson.

[w8liftinglady]

26. I was in nursing school-learning how to insert a catheter

My instructor came and got us,and we watched the closed-circuit tv in the classroom.we were all devastated.

[Xithras]

27. Oh yes. And it was January 28, not 25th

I was 11 years old and in the 5th grade. Our principal had made a big deal about a teacher going into space, including having a "space week" where all of the classes got to build little rockets that we were going to launch after the shuttle went up. My class built several, including one called the USS Christa. On the morning of the launch all of the classrooms had been squeezed into our auditorium to watch the launch on our principals newfangled big screen projection TV.

All of the classes except OURS. Our school seated kids in the cafeteria according to class, and the previous friday we'd started a food fight at our tables. As punishment, we were confined to our classroom and were going to miss the launch as punishment. I remember vividly that we were just starting to read about Mission San Juan Bautista when a teacher burst through our door crying. She looked at my teacher and sobbed "It blew up! It exploded! They're dead!" My teacher practically flew out of his chair and asked "What exploded?!?!" I don't know what he was thinking, but I was expecting to hear "A Car", "A Classroom", or even "The Auditorium". At that age I still wanted to be an astronaut, and the concept that BAD THINGS happen to astronauts hadn't sunk in yet. When she answered "The Challenger" though, any pretense of punishment evaporated. The entire class bolted for the door and headed for the auditorium. By the time we reached it, the principal had already shut it off and was herding everyone out...and not one teacher or student was coming out with a dry face. About 10 minutes later the principle canceled school for the day and we walked home and spent the rest of the day watching the news on TV.

We launched the rockets the following Monday, starting at the exact moment the shuttle had exploded. At the time, we had a NASA test field not too far away (it closed long ago), and a few NASA administrators (including an ex-astronaut who I can't remember the name of anymore) were kind enough to come over, talk to us, and join our impromptu memorial. As was fitting, the USS Christa outclimbed ALL of the other rockets.

Yep, I remember vividly.

[Okiojira]

28. Yes...

...i was going to 8th grade science class and my teacher broke the news to us as we entered class. I remember making some stupid joke and my teacher just gave me this look like I was a total quisling - which i was, being 14 at the time. then i saw the footage and felt pretty crummy about my stupid joke.

ah, memories...

[Mutley]

29. Yes. I was at school, and we were watching the launch on teevee

because of Christa McAuliffe. It was horrible watching that.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

30. Yes. In the Coast Guard and had just

come in from a 6 day patrol, sent back out fast, as they initially did not know how far north it may have come.

sad day, and all for someone's (Reagan's) bullshit glory boast.

[northzax]

31. yes, watched it live in the fifth grade

and it was probably lunch time that the jokes started: what does NASA stand for? Where do astronauts go on Vacation? etc.

[RoyGBiv]

32. Yes ... a bit of trivia ...

I was at home sick from school that day with bad cold. My mom came home early for lunch, woke me up, and told me what had happened. I immediately turned on the television and began watching. I followed the space program religiously at the time, and my history teacher had been one of those who had applied to be on that mission. (She said she was a finalist, but she also said she was a direct descendant of a famous historical person I know from further education has no known direct descendants, but I digress.)

The trivia is this:

A lot of people who remember the Challenger explosion say they saw it live, as it happened. Almost all of those people are misremembering. Similar to the near-disaster with Apollo 13, the launches had become so commonplace and "uninteresting" to news organizations by that time, that none of the networks carried the launch live. When the disaster happened, they immediately cut over to their reporters at the scene, some of whom were cub reporters sent on a mission to witness yet another boring shuttle launch, and the footage of the launch was then replayed, over and over, all day long. The sad irony is that a lot of school children did see the launch live as it was being carried on a satellite feed that schools with satellite receivers could tune in. (We had one at my school, and some of my classmates did see it live, but I did not since I was not there that day.) They experienced a major shock, some needing therapy after the event just to function, especially those who went to the school where McAuliffe taught. The others who saw it live were either there or had satellite systems at their homes, which was rare at the time.

[astral]

37. I saw it live and I don't think I'm 'mis-remembering'

I didn't even have a TV. I was in my 20's and had by a fluke stayed at a friend's house and was laying in the living room watching tv after she went to work . . . . I believe we'd had a few the night before . . . . anyhow I remember the horror of seeing it explode.

I was bothered by it because somehow I couldn't believe they were going to send a civilian schoolteacher out into space, beforehand. And then this happens. I very very seldom cry seeing / hearing any kind of news but I was able to sit there and cry away by myself right there and I'll never forget it.

[RoyGBiv]

41. Depends ...

It was live in some places like Florida, near Houston, and in Alabama near where all the space science people work. If you were there, you may have. The feed was there, live, but most local affiliates didn't bother with it, in part because it cut into the daytime programming, and during previous launches local stations had received numerous complaints about interrupting those shows.

The replays began almost immediately after it happened and without the networks really acknowledging that they hadn't bothered to cover it, which is what causes the confusion in people's minds. It *seemed* live to a lot of the people who saw it, but it wasn't.

I, for example, know I didn't see it live, but what I did see was a broadcast without any indication that this had been recorded, narration by a news commentator who was genuinely shocked when it all happened because he had been recorded as it happened. If I had just flipped on the television without already knowing what had taken place, I'd probably have thought I saw it live as well.

Anyway, it is possible, but unlikely.

[Name removed]

57. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lars39]

76. I saw it live as an adult. No doubt about it.

[MrScorpio]

33. I was in Korea at the time

I still have very vivid memories of it

[Aristus]

34. Sure. I was a senior in high school.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

[spacelady]

35. I was a schoolteacher in a small town in Nebraska - the students had jokes

by the same afternoon, not amusing. I felt numb and sad.

[Placebo]

36. Fuck no, that's fucking stupid. Fuck Challenger!

I was fucking months away from fucking being fucking born.

[Maestro]

38. I was a senior in HS

and it happened during my trig class...unforgetable.

[Floogeldy]

39. My alarm went off.

Instead of the usual local news idiots blasting out of the radio, it was Vic Ratner of ABC Radio rambling on about something terrible that had just happened. It took several minutes for them to inform me of what actually had occured.

This is rivaled only by 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, which I heard, real time.

[Redstone]

40. Indeed I do.

Redstone

[grannylib]

42. I was home sick from work, watching TV with the sound off and listening to

Pink Floyd's "The Gunner's Dream" on the turntable...

it was too fucking surreal, those lyrics and watching this beautiful craft with those 7 people aboard...

Ellison Onozuka (sp) I think was one of the other ones

[tinfoilinfor2005]

43. Yes, I saw it happen from my back yard.

We were living a few short miles from the Cape at the time, and we always watched the launches.

It was horrible. I think the worst part (other than the obvious tragedy) was that smoke cloud that developed on explosion. It just hung in the sky for hours because there was not a lick of breeze that day. And eventually it just floated in one piece across the sky. But it seemed as though it was up there all day and it was so eery to see it every time you looked up. Burned in my mind.

http://www.answers.com/topic/space-shuttle-challenger-disaster



on edit: picture at link

[Ptah]

44. I'm so old, I remember splashdown.

:hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

45. Not really

But I was drinking rather a lot in those days.

My ex does, though. She lived in Titusville, Fla. at the time — right across the Indian River from Cape Canaveral. Folks there used to watch launches from their yards.

She saw it.

[OzarkDem]

46. Was 8 months pregnant

still working, heard about it at the office, everyone was depressed. I felt a little lucky because I was looking forward to having my baby, so it didn't get me down as much as the others. Baby is a junior at U of Missouri now.

[1monster]

47. I live just up the coast from Cape Canveral (by road 120 miles, less

as the crow flies).

That Y-shaped cloud formed by the explosion hung in the sky most of the daya. It was clear and cold with almost no wind to blow it away...

[swag]

53. There's a vivid image.

[lpbk2713]

48. Saw it from about a hundred miles away.

Me and a co-worker. We knew it was bad when we saw it but we didn't hear the news until about an hour later.

[yellowdogintexas]

49. Nursing my daughter, in the rocking chair when the news hit

I was in Biology class in 10th grade when JFK was shot
In the dorm when MLK was shot
In Louisville visiting my boyfriend at his parents'home when RFK was shot
and married to him and up at the crack of doom to watch the first steps on the moon.

God I'm old.

[Elidor]

50. "Obviously a major malfunction"

They actually said that on national TV as the smoke from the explosion hung there on our screens.

[bumblebee1]

51. Eating lunch aboard the ship where I was stationed.

After the announcement was made, it got quiet on the mess deck. After finishing my lunch, I went into the berthing area to see it on TV. I can remember all the jokes, especially when told by my then school age nephew. He's now 30.

[jonnyblitz]

63. I was deployed on the USS Coral Sea when it happened.

I can't remember where exactly the ship was, I want to say Indian Ocean but I am not sure.

[bumblebee1]

77. Mine was Charleston harbor.

[swag]

52. Yes. Was working the phones at Metro Messenger in DC and

clients started telling me that the shuttle had blown up.

Walked up to deli for a meatball sub at lunch and watched it explode over and over.

[auntAgonist]

54. Yes, i was on the dirt road just north of the farm we lived on

driving my son home from co-op preschool. I had to stop the car, I was so shocked :cry:

The Crew.

The shuttle Challenger flight STS-51L crew members who died January 28, 1986.

Ellison S. Onizuka,
Sharon Christa McAuliffe,
Greg Jarvis,
Judy Resnik,
Mike Smith,
Dick Scobee,
Ron McNair,

[auntAgonist]

74. the crew photo and names of the crew are in my post above n/t

[madeline_con]

55. I live across the river from the Cape.

The foam chunk was mentioned at launch and shown on TV several times.

Then, it was discussed as a "possible problem" on reentry.

Then, when it caused the inevitable, there was endless talk that was mostly denial.

We were all in a state of shock, wondering why there was no rescue attempt.

Then, to add insult to injury, the endless talk about conducting an "investigation" and publishing 1000s of pages about what everyone already knew was the cause.

[1monster]

72. Challenger blow up was caused by a malfunctioning O -ring which

was too cold to function correctly.

The Columbia blow up on reentry was caused by the chunck of foam.

[Robeson]

56. Just a minor correction. It occurred on January 28th, not 25th....

...but otherwise, yes, I remember it well. January 28th is my birthday. I was sitting in a class in college at the time, and a girl burst through the door to announce it.

[bertha katzenengel]

92. thanks for the date correction

:hi:

[deadparrot]

58. Didn't exist.

It happened about a year and a week before I was born.

[Nicole]

59. Yes

I was watching on the office t.v. Not much work got done after that.

[Popol Vuh]

60. I remember it

I was at Fort Lewis and being held at the MP station for being AWOL at the time..

LOL... :P

[SlavesandBulldozers]

61. watched it with my own eyes from a 4th grade playground.

though i didn't know anything was wrong till we got back to class and all the teachers were crying.

my teacher at the time had been in the run-up to be in MacAulliffe's shoes.

[Fox Mulder]

62. I was only three at the time.

So no, I have no memory of it.

[Katina]

64. I was watching it while folding laundry

I couldn't believe my eyes. When it exploded, I sat down and cried. When they started talking about how it was possible that they survived the initial explosion and may have been concious during the crash into the water, I got sick and prayed that when the explosion hit, they didn't feel another thing.
Remebering that Christa was on the flight and all those school children who would be watching the first teacher fly into space, made me cry again.

[bigwillq]

65. Snow day from school

watched it live as it happened. I was eight. I was scared.

[myrna minx]

66. My ninth grade class was watching it live.

I had never witnessed anyone die and here a whole crew and a school teacher perished right before our eyes. I was so unbelievably shocked and saddened that I started writing in a journal that night. :cry: I couldn't imagine what it was like to be her proud class witnessing her death. :cry:

My ninth grade class went on a class trip to Florida that spring. When we visited NASA, it was so incredibly sad to behold the wonder of American ingenuity, yet have a pall hanging over the place from the tragedy that happened four months before. I am still haunted by this.

[peekaloo]

67. I watched it explode from my then back yard about 70 miles away.

Perfect day for a launch, cloudless but too damn cold!

[JVS]

68. I remember my mom telling my brother and me that we were not to joke..

about it the next day. My school didn't watch it on TV live, and nobody found out until we went home for the day, but the next day on the way back to school, mom told us not to joke about the explosion. My teacher always started the day by asking us what was in the news. Matt, who usually could be counted upon only to get in trouble quickly raised his hand and announced "The rocket blew up!"

[bicentennial_baby]

70. 3rd grade, in class

Yep...unfortuately, I do. x(

[Midlodemocrat]

71. Yup. I was actually a finalist to be the teacher that went up with that

shuttle. Didn't make the cut, obviously, but I remember that extremely well. My nephew was living with me and while I was teaching a class, he was sitting in my car eating his lunch when it came on the radio.

Shook me up quite a bit, to say the least.

[auntAgonist]

75. I'm thankful, as I'm sure you and your family are...

that you didn't make the cut.

:hug:


wow
aA

[Phillycat]

73. Yes - we actually watched it in school.

They wheeled in a TV to the classrom so we could watch the launch. After the explosion, the teacher just turned off the TV and there was no discussion about what happened. We just did something else. :shrug:

[SteppingRazor]

78. Kinda -- I was 9 years old...

so, I remember it happening, but didn't really understand the significance.

[nickinSTL]

79. I do...

we were at lunch when the first whispers went through...

It wasn't clear to me what had happened until the next class period (computer class) - when they had the news running on TV in the classroom.

Then I went home and watched more of the news.

[Catshrink]

80. Here's a "cute" story about it..

The evening of the explosion, I called my younger nephew. He was a very sensitive child and I wanted to offer comfort. He said all the kids at school were laughing about it but he was very sad. We talked about maybe the other kids didn't know how to react to something so terrible. Then I said:

"You know, everybody I work with was very sad today. It reminded me of how people felt and acted with President Kennedy was killed."

Neph: "Were you alive back then?"

Gee did I feel old.

edited to fix my html typo grumble grumble damn square brackets.

[wildhorses]

81. I was at work. One of our biggest cut-ups....said: "Did you hear

about the Challenger?" I was like..."oh yeah and what's the punchline?" "It's not a joke" he said.
OMFG...WTF???!?!?!


Devastation hit me in the stomach and disbelief settled into grief as the day lingered and the pictures, OMG the fucking pictures!

[MikeH]

82. I was at my job when it happened

I had recently started working at my job. And also my father had died a couple of months earlier.

I remember knowing that the Challenger was going to be launched that day, and I think they had a TV at my job that day, but don't remember for sure. I remember hearing people talking like something had happened, and I said "It sounds like something happened", and I was told about the Challenger explosion.

Maybe I was somewhat numbed at the time (with my father having recently died), but I don't remember being affected too deeply about what happened, though I was a little bit sad. It just didn't quite hit me like my earlier memories, such as especially the Kennedy assassination when I was in junior high school.

[TommyO]

83. I remember it well, I was 21 and working evenings

and happened to be watching TV when the accident occurred.

There is a townhouse community in Somerset, NJ where several of the streets are named after Challenger's astronauts. Here's a mapquest link to the area: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=address&country=US&addtohistory=&searchtab=home&formtype=address&popflag=0&latitude=&longitude=&name=&phone=&level=&cat=&address=970+easton+ave&city=somerset&state=nj&zipcode=08873

updated to provide a link that actually works!

[Dora]

84. Junior year of HS, screwing around in Drama class.

Principal Lyons made a school-wide announcement on the PA.

:(

[Radio_Lady]

85. I was visiting beauty salons with my Clairol manager, Ray G. It was

a cold but beautiful day in Boston. We were working together detailing at salons. When we saw the event on TV, we stopped all sales calls, I took him back to his hotel, and I went home.

I watched the trails of smoke over and over... it was a terribly sad event.

[Radio_Lady]

89. Manager's name comes up as deceased in 1997. Too bad.

This getting older business is -- getting old.

R.I.P. Ray G. from Buffalo, NY.

[redqueen]

87. yes

we were in class... history class... and we were watching the takeoff... it was horrible. they had us all go to counselors afterward to help us deal with witnessing such a shocking awful thing. i remember after it happened the class was just silent. it was really numbing because at that age (8th grade i think) we were all pretty much still not dealing with our own mortality yet and that kind of brought that message home pretty suddenly.

[alarimer]

88. It was a snow day at my high school

in suburban Atlanta. Got a dusting of snow and of course they freaked and canceled school. I was in my room, listening the the radio when the DJ announced that the shuttle had blown up. I turned on the TV and watched the replay. It was stunning. Horrible. I had this eerie feeling when they found the crew compartment under water.

[MrBenchley]

93. Not only that, I remember Apollo 1

and the Vanguard disaster....

[Lydia Leftcoast]

94. I was teaching Japanese at a state university on the West Coast

Just before class, one of my students came rushing in and said, "The space shuttle blew up."

I hadn't been paying much attention, so I didn't really process it. We went on with class.

However, after class was over, I went back to my office and turned on the radio. There was the news.

I lived only two blocks off campus and didn't have a class that next hour, so I ran home to watch TV. As I watched the replays, I kept thinking, "Maybe they ejected": or something.

[bluethruandthru]

95. Yep...I was on the air doing radio news at the time.

My shift had just ended when the UPI machine went crazy. I went back on the air and stayed on most of the day. Sad and exhausting.

[laylah]

96. My children

awesome Kaghime was in school and my "WAIT 'TIL YOU HAVE KIDS OF YOUR OWN" child was wreaking havoc somewhere in the house. I remember seeing the explosion and calling my (then) husband at work. I was devastated and in deep shock! What a horrible tragedy. The sight of the explosion is vivid in my mind; however, I also remember hearing about a plaque on Scobee's wall. I do not remember the verbage on it; however, I do remember sobbing uncontrollably when it was read.

[NMMNG]

99. Yes

I was a senior in high school at the time. I didn't see it live but (as with all events of that nature) the footage was played and replayed on the news countless times for weeks afterward. It was one of the defining events of that time.

[DinahMoeHum]

102. The other three: Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka and Gregory Jarvis

n/t

[Strawman]

103. I remember it being on TV in the junior high lunch room

That was a place full of bad memories.

[slackmaster]

104. At work - Coworkers couldn't decide if Arabs did it or the Soviets

:argh:

[Radio_Lady]

108. This was the doomed flight that had faulty O-rings, right?

[slackmaster]

109. Yes, it turned out to be O-rings that got brittle when cold

The fact that a lot of people reacted by suspecting Soviet or Arab sabotage says a lot.

The Soviet Union is now long gone, but people have been afraid and suspicious of Arabs for a long time.

[LibertyLover]

105. I was at work

I was a legal assistant in a law firm on Wall Street in New York City at the time. We had people who circulated through the office picking up and delivering mail. One of them walked into the paralegals' area and asked if we had heard that the shuttle had blown up and killed the astronauts. Of course we hadn't. Our superviser was a pyscho amazon warbitch from Hell, with attitude, and had mandated that we could not have radios at our desks ("Unprofessional" was her favorite reason to deny everything, from taking vacations to evacuating the building due to a fire - no joke). I'm afraid that while I was sorry to hear the news, it didn't overly surprise me. When I got home that evening, mom was fixing dinner. I mentioned the news, and she was startled. Usually she watched the news while eating lunch, but that day she had been busy around the house and had not bothered to watch any tv, so my telling her was the first she had heard about it.

[Vividqueen]

106. Yep, skipping school w/friend and saw it go up and then...

we noticed something strange and saw it split up. We immediately switched the radio on to news to screaming and then we knew what happened. We turned right around and went back to school and told the principal and our teacher about it. They confirmed it and made an announcement. My teacher turned on the radio and we listened for the rest of the class.

One of those life-altering moments, especially for a teen.

[mvd]

110. Yes, I do

I was only 9, and it really affected me. I remember being in my bed with my cousin a few months later and wishing they escaped to somewhere. Had those kid fantasies.

[AirmensMom]

112. I was sitting in my M.I.S. class.

The prof came in and said something about it being "too bad about the space shuttle" ... and we didn't have a clue what he was talking about until class was over and we saw some TVs. Then we wondered how he could be so calm about it! :wtf:

[liberalpress]

113. Hell, I remember the Apollo 1 fire