I was at work, perhaps 50 feet from my current location. My buddy in the next office came over and told me the space shuttle crashed. I called my wife who was home in the latter stages of pregnancy, had her turn the TV on and put in a VHS tape to record the broadcast.
I remember being a little miffed at the coverage that seven people died, INCLUDING CHRISTA MCAULIFFE Like the others weren’t equally important, particularly to their families. I wondered how their families felt about their loved ones being treated like secondary cast members.
I was driving I to work at grad school, and heard on the radio that the shuttle had “crashed”, and tried hard to get further news, which, of course, wasn’t forthcoming. It wasn’t until I saw footage on the TVs at school that I realize that “crash” wasn’t really a good description.
I was at sea aboard a Chinese (PRC) research vessel in the south pacific. One of the English-speaking Chinese guys - aka the political officer- called me into his cabin and said “I am so sorry about your space ship”.
It took 3 or 4 iterations before I figured out what he was trying to get across. Then I went up on the flying bridge with a radio and got the news.
I was at a work & someone had brought in a portable TV. When I saw it split into 3 like a skyrocket, I asked them to turn it off (because I damn well knew what had happened).
Dunno. I didn’t hear about it until hours later. I’m not sure even now why it’s such a big deal relative to similar disasters. Few people remember where they were when they found out that astronauts Grissom, White, and Chaffee died in a fire on the launching pad in an Apollo 1 test exercise in January 1967.
I was at my desk at the little AM station I worked at in the 80s when my AP teletype machine suddenly went bonkers. The last time I heard it make that much noise was when Reagan was shot.
I think I broke the indoor landspeed record crossing the room. One look at the header and I was sprinting out the door, headed for the studio, trailing a long sheet of teletype paper behind me. I still have that initial AP report in a file folder at home.
I had enough presence of mind to check and see that the ‘on air’ light was off before I barreled into the room. The jock took one look at my face and asked what was wrong. ‘The space shuttle just blew up,’ I told him.
Without another word he killed the record, introed me with the usual ‘we interrupt this program to bring you breaking news…’ shtick, and I did the first, last, and only ‘rip-and-read’ of my radio career.
When I was little I loved The Challenger and wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.
I was 12 when I went home for lunch that day and my Dad said “Juicy, get up here right now. Something terrible has happened. The Challenger blew up.” I thought “He has to be shittin’ me. But why would he joke about something so horrible?” I can still picture myself standing in front of the TV watching the replays. I took a step back to sit on the couch, missed and landed on the floor. Then I started crying.
The reason it was such a big deal is because McAuliffe would’ve been the 1st civilian in space. Though I agree completely about it sucking that her death overshadowed 6 other equally tragic deaths.
The Planetarium in Concord, NH was named the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium and Science Center in her honor for a while (McAuliffe was a NH native). It has since been expanded and is now the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (Alan Shepard was born in Derry, NH)
I was working in downtown Atlanta as an analyst for a financial company when the news came in and our boss brought out his TV and set it up in the break room so we could watch the coverage. No work occurred that day, obviously. Weirdly, I was convinced that it was sabotage. Yes, I was a bit crazy back then. Who would have thought that a single O-ring assembly would cause such a tragedy? But, for the lack of a nail, the kingdom fell.
Art class, sophmore year in high school. A classmate walked in and matter-of-factly told us. She was so deadpan that I didn’t believe it, so we turned on the radio and sure enough…
I was home, sick with a high fever and sweating like an iced glass of tea sitting in the summer sun. I was watching it live when it happened and at first I thought it was just another bad fever dream. But unlike the others I had previously, this nightmare didn’t go away-it got increasingly worse. I would drift out, come back, and the same damn fever dream kept on going on and on and on.
I think our 2nd grade class was watching on TV when it happened. I used the words “I think” because I’m not sure if it’s a faulty memory, but I’m reasonably sure we were watching because McAuliffe.
