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.
I was in HS, & for some forgotten reason was in the teacher’s lounge when I saw it on the TV there. I ran back into the cafeteria & told the lunch aide to turn the TV on. She didn’t move. I think the second time I cursed; "turn the damn TV on (or a word beginning with ‘F’); everyone stopped & looked at me, then at her, then at the TV that she turned on.
Forty years ago yesterday, I was in seventh-grade English class. We’d had a two-hour delay due to winter weather. We were waiting to be dismissed to go to lunch when the principal came on the PA system to tell us what had happened. At first I thought he was just announcing the launch, then I heard the hesitancy in his voice when he started to say, “Just over a minute into the launch…” and I knew something had happened. The principal asked for a moment of silence. As I headed down the hall to lunch afterward, I passed some other kids who were saying, “It’s gotta be the Russians…”
One bit of trivia that I think many of you probably know is that they were considering sending Big Bird up on the Challenger. That’s right…they were considering sending Carroll Spinney up in costume and making a storyline out of it on Sesame Street and everything. But ultimately, they decided that Big Bird’s size would force them to alter some of the shuttle’s safety conditions, and went with the teacher-in-space program, choosing Christa McAuliffe.
Can you imagine what THAT would have been like? Either Sesame Street would have had to deal with the horrific death of their most iconic character–a six-year-old CHILD in canon, unlike the elderly Mr. Hooper whose actor also had passed–or recast the iconic Carroll Spinney (and recast Oscar as well) and find some way to explain why Big Bird wasn’t on the shuttle after all.
But I’ve just watched a video which points out how Christa McAuliffe’s presence on the flight was one of the factors that made them push for the Jan. 28th launch even though there were concerns about the temperature affecting the O-rings. (Either Reagan wanted it to coincide with the State of the Union address so he could point out McAuliffe’s presence as the first teacher/civilian in space and possibly contact her live during the address, or they needed the date in place so McAuliffe could go with the stunt of teaching one of her classroom lessons from space.) This video speculates that had it been Big Bird instead of McAuliffe, they wouldn’t have felt the need to rush it and to launch on that date, and might have delayed it until more favorable conditions were in place. (Besides, the PR nightmare would have been even greater had they risked the life of a beloved children’s icon, so they might have taken that into account as well.) Instead of “Big Bird might have been killed on the Challenger,” it could very well have been a matter of “Big Bird might have SAVED the Challenger”!
I was between classes in 9th grade, and a guy in the hallway heard the news on his Walkman and told us. Walkmans weren’t allowed in school: the guy was not only a rule-breaker but also the type who might think that was a funny prank, so no one believed him. Then I got to biology class, and after a few minutes the principal made an announcement. I didn’t see the video until I got home from school that day.