I was in the former bomb shelter underneath the junior high school that served as its cafeteria. As I patiently waited in line for my daily dose of grease, I noticed my 8th grade science teacher, Ms. Stiles, walking by in tears. One of my classmates who only harassed me occasionally (I had no friends in junior high) turned to me and said, flippantly, “The space shuttle just blew up.” I didn’t believe him.
The next day, I visited my 7th grade science teacher and told her that I was so happy that she hadn’t been selected. (If I recall correctly, she made it past the initial screening.)
Years later, I did my student teaching at Christa McAuliffe Elementary School.
Whenever you hear tributes to the Challenger crew, they usually dwell on Christa McAuliffe, and maybe show you a film cliop of the whole crew going to board the shuttle, but there were seven aboard the shuttle that day, eachj with unique personalities and lives. They should talk more about the others.
I remember the fifth anniversary – three of us gathered under the Building 7 dome at MIT. A big deal it wasn’t.
I understand Ron’s got an impressive monument down South (I haven’t visited) and, I think, a scholarship. Christa McAuliffe has a planetarium named after her in Concord, N.H. I hope the other members have appropriate memorials.
Christa McAuliffe’s brother Steve worked for my father for three years in the early 80s, and was a dinner guest at our house on several occasions. We felt privileged to share with his family, in some small respect, the news that Christa had been selected for the Teacher In Space program.
I was a freshman in high school on that cold January morning. Since it was an all-boys school, the news was greeted by much callousness and the sadistic jokes began making the rounds almost immediately. A couple of guys figured out that it would be wise not to repeat such things in my presence after a teacher had to hold me back from decking them.
I was in the basement of my fraternity running one of those big floor waxers when one of Aero/Astro majors came in and told us. I remember he was completely devastated - space exploration had always been his dream. He works at JPL now.
CalMeacham, isn’t one of the MIT building (37?) named after Ron McNair?
I was at work, my first job after graduating from electronics school. It was 11:45 and the announcer on the radio broke in to say that ‘something’ had happened during the launch. We began to hear more during the noon news.
I don,t remember much of the rest of the day, but the next day, the Toronto Star had a beautiful editorial cartoon: a space helmet with broken visor, still reflecting the stars.
I cut it out and stuck it in my sketchbook. I still have it.
During the Challenger tradegy I was living in South Carolina. I was driving to the local discount giant when I heard the news on the radio. When I arrived at the store I headed directly to the TV department. There were several disbelieving saddened folks standing there.
Columbia strikes closer to home. Now that I live in Central Florida, I still get a thrill whenever there’s a launch, and a big kick when the sonic boom passes overhead on return. Mr. Anachi lived on Merritt Island from the time he was a wee lad. His deceased mother worked for NASA. We always wait tensely for a safe touchdown. That particular Sunday morning (I’m pretty sure it was Sunday) we knew the time the shuttle was supposed to land and were waiting. No sonic boom. The TV coverage during that interminable wait was extremely hard to take. Not something I want to repeat.
It is, indeed, but, to tell the truth I’d forgotten – one generally refers to the buildings ast MIT by number rather than by name (thus reinforcing a stereotype, sadly). It took me a while to track this down online Appropriately, Building 37 contains the Center for Space Research.
I was in kindergarten, 5 years old. I remember my teacher talking about how a teacher was going into space with the crew and then hearing that they had all died. I was terrified for quite a while that all teachers had to travel into space and that my mom (a teacher) would have to go and possibly die.
The Columbia disaster happened my senior year in college. I was standing on a street corner reading the article in the college newspaper on it. There was a bit about how a friend of one of the crew member’s called his house after seeing the aircraft wreckage streaking through the sky and left a message to the effect of “We saw you flying today” but said much more eloquently and with more affection. I started crying at the stop reading this and could hear several people around me sniffling. They were all reading the same article.
Thinking on both the Challenger and Columbia brings tears to my eyes. I’m sitting here at my desk snuffling.
During the Columbia tragedy, I was in a Saturday Master’s class. We were all stunned and started talking about where we were when Challenger blew up. That was the one day that the hardass professor let us out early.
I had to go to work that evening. I work with a bunch of teenagers who weren’t alive when Challenger happened. Everyone wanted to hear my Challenger story and share their Columbia story with me.
I had some time to kill between classes at Cal Poly Pomona, so I went to Tower Records (in West Covina) to check out what was on sale and the store actually had the launch on…I will always remember…“Powering up to 104%”…and then it happened. I stood there staring at the screen replaying it for the next hour before I realized that I had to get back to my comp. sci. class and then we spent the whole class theorizing what happened and we all felt like we got punched in the gut that day.
Oh, I definitely remember that the buildings are always referred to by number (aside from Kresge), but I also remember it being a big deal on campus when they renamed 37 from whatever it was to the Ron McNair building.
You are pretty much right about that, the last air to ground transmission was:
Scobee, air-to-ground: “Roger, go at throttle up.”
T+72.204
The last in-cabin recording was:
Smith, intercom: “Uh oh…” This is the last comment captured by the crew cabin intercom recorder. Smith may have been responding to indications on main engine performance or falling pressures in the external fuel tank.
T+73.010
I had remembered this:
Booster systems engineer: “Throttle up, three at 104.”
Greene: “Capcom (Covey), go at throttle up.”
T+66.174
Taken from: Challenger Timeline.
