I was in high school when it happened. I didn’t watch the launch—likely because shuttle launches were routine by then. A freshman student told me and a friend I was having lunch with that the shuttle had blown up and we didn’t believe him, even making fun of him. That’s how unbelievable it was to me at that time. (But it’s not a response that I’m proud of.)
Of course I soon found out he was right. I didn’t watch the news that night, so I didn’t see the video of the explosion, and after a short time, they stopped showing it. It was decades later before I finally saw the video.
Seventeen years later, I was following the re-entry of Columbia live when it was lost.
Until this thread, I had no idea that tiles had been lost to such a great extent before the Columbia disaster and that NASA should have known it was a potentially fatal flaw.
Agreed. The more I learn about both disasters, the madder I get.
Fair point. In my mind, I think of the combined stack as STS-51-L, with the Challenger orbiter as the most important component (because it contained the humans). The remaining shuttles displayed in museums are referred to as Discovery and Atlantis, and recall their solid rocket boosters were re-used on other missions.
I was in third grade at a school about 20 minutes from the high school where Christa McAuliffe taught (and later I went to high school with her son). We were predictably all pretty excited about our local hero.
What I remember most keenly from that day was after the disaster, we were sent out for an unscheduled recess while presumably they tried to figure out what they would do with us for the rest of the day. We didn’t run around or play, we just gathered in groups and talked. They brought us back in and we just kept watching coverage. I guess there was nothing else they could think to do.
I remember watching it live in 1st grade. Those of us in schools were actually the only ones who saw it live. CNN had cut away. Because of the teacher in space angle, NASA had arrange a satellite broadcast of the full mission into many schools.
Same here. Senior in HS. Was in a class called “Current Events,” or something like that. I remember Mr. Domsitz wheeling a TV on a TV cart into the class, and turned on the news.
And coincidentally, it happened at 11:39 AM EST, which is the exact same time I am posting this.
For Challenger and Columbia, this is what happens when Suits and Politicians override Technical Staff.
What should happen, is that the CEO, Directors, etc. should be immediately arrested and charged with manslaughter. This approach has happened in Europe for plane crashes. It will change Management’s focus from profit and schedule to safety.
I was a junior in college. I’d known that the launch was supposed to happen that morning, but was in a class (business logistics, if I remember correctly) when the launch, and explosion, occurred.
After class, I’d walked over to my work-study job; when I got there, one of my co-workers told me about what had happened (he had heard it on the radio). I was stunned at that moment, and couldn’t imagine what had happened.