I was in the Marines, on a joint exercise with the Army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. An old Gunny in HQ had the communications guys run an antenna up a tree, so he had a television, which we all watched when the day was done/off duty. I walked into the tent for some reason or other and caught the replay of the accident, stood watching silently over and over.
It was my 22nd birthday.
Sir Rhosis
I remember listening to Reagan’s speech afterwards.
I was one of the kids who was watching the launch live during school. Several grades were gathered together in the gym watching it on TV. When the shuttle blew up, everyone was dead silent. I don’t have any clear memories of the rest of that day. I think I was the first person to tell my mother, however.
That image of the rocket boosters flying off by themselves still ranks as one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.
I was in high school in Florida. It was an exam week, so we were released early. I know I went home and it was on television. It didn’t really have much of an effect on me as I had to immediately go back to studying.
When Columbia blew up, I had the tv on to a local station. I remember they broke in around 9 AM ET or so.
I was in my second grad school, driving up to the university, instead of walking (It’s January, and it’s cold), I turn on the radio and hear that the Challenger crashed.
What? I spent the rest of the day trying to get information on it. I still don’t know why the radio report sauid it crashed. Maybe they didn’t know, or else couldn’t find the right words.
It was quite a blow. I’d co-authored two papers with one of the Challenger astronauts, back before he was in the program.
Cal, may I inquire who?
Every year we are in class on the anniversary, I list the names on the whiteboard and make sure the class knows that these people were heroes.
“Lest we Forget.”
I was at school, and our whole class was in church. We received the news just as we left the monastery. I never actually saw the footage at the time, because the news people didn’t like showing it, we didn’t have cable, and when they got around to actually showing it, I was in the restroom or something.
I finally saw footage years later in grad-school. I was appalled by the cheers and laughter as it blew up → The footage I saw was from a camera amongst a group of young children and a grade-school teacher, who obviously didn’t know what was happening. I was horrified, but I guess when everyone was so optimistic, they couldn’t fathom that the amazing explosion was the worst possible outcome.
It made me sad. 
Ron McNair – we shared an advisor. He also founded a dojon for kids at the local AME Church, to give them an off-the-street activity. Very interesting guy.
I think it happened during the middle of the night our time. I suppose I heard about it on the news the next day. I don’t actually remember now.
I remember it vividly. My dad is an aerospace engineer, so I’ve always followed launches. Twenty years ago, I was eating breakfast, watching the launch on a small black and white portable TV. I clearly remember seeing the dovetail downward spiral plumes, and thinking, “Oh shit, that can’t be what I’m seeing” I also remember what chaos the reporters were in, there was a real lack of any concrete information, and how, after a good while, Peter Jennings just came in and took control. It was amazing to see how much panache he had; he calmed it down and made an ordered sequence of incoming reports. I greatly respected his journalistic talent after that.
CalMeacham Your friend Ron McNair was celebrated hereabouts at his almamater NC A&T The Engineering building is named after him, and he serves as an example of aspiration to the students there.
Sixth-grade science camp. There were no TVs in the cabins and it was hours later that I actually heard about it. Like so many, I thought it was a bad attempt at a joke at first. I was a big aerospace junkie up to that point. That was a pretty big blow, since there was basically nothing big done at NASA for years afterward.
I was studying in my apartment in Quebec City. It was a pretty bare-bones set-up, without a tv.
My roomate came in and told me the news.
I didn’t see the tv shots of it for several days. My images came from the print media.
1986: I was 22 then, and home nursing my mother. Heard the news in the morning here. Came as a hell of a shock, even though we were here, thousands of miles away. When my brother came to visit later that year, I mentioned the fact that overnight frost had been reported in that part of Florida the night before the explosion. He doubted that – and I showed him pictures from a copy of Time.
I still have a philatelic cover that had gone up with Challenger on a previous mission. I treasure that.
1967: I was four years old, but I vaguely remember hearing that something had gone dreadfully wrong.
Whiterabbit has already described how we learned about it. After we left her former school, we spent most of the rest of the day sitting in the waiting room of the orthopedic clinic at the hospital watching the replays. It was a very quiet and very sad day.
I was a space junkie from the beginning – I remember seeing Alan Shephard’s flight as an 8-year-old, and watched every launch I could from that day forward. When I was in sixth grade, a group of students from a number of schools gathered at one of the buildings at the old Seattle World’s Fair site and Edward White spoke to us. He was just so dynamic, so inspiring.
So when I heard about the Apollo 1 fire, it was awful. To this day I mourn that brave man, along with all the others; but with him, it’s a little more personal.
I was sound asleep in a different timezone. My dad told me as soon as I woke up I was about sixteen. The timezone thing is weird - unlike Europe, we knew Diana had been in a car accident hours before she died. We saw 9/11 live. I still think I’d rather just wake up to it though, as with Challenger.
The most moving thing, whatever your politics, or whatever you think personally of the man himself, had to be Reagan’s Speech. Definitely one of the last great 20th Century pieces of oratory.
I was only six at the time but still found it mind boggling, I was glued to the papers and tv for a while.
I was in 7th grade. We had the day off because a pipe in the school had burst due to the cold. I planned to wake up and watch the launch because local gal made good Judy Resnick was on the flight – she had graduated from the high school next door, which I’d be attending in a couple years, so most of my teachers had once been her teachers. (I remember speaking to her on a conference call in first grade, when one of my teachers was her cousin.) But being a lazy sod, I slept through it. When I did wake up, I went doenstairs and turned on the tv to see Peter Jennings but I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. Then my mom called, crying.
The next day all our teachers were shellshocked. Some time later the high school had a memorial service which we watched on closed-circut tv.
–Cliffy
I wasn’t a fan of Regan’s, but this was without doubt a brilliant bit of oratory- you are so right here. He ( or his writer… ) addressed a usually unspoken part of public death- how children feel about it.
He chose wisely in saying what he said.
Love him or hate him, he was a great speaker and I think a true friend to the Space Program.
Jim
I was in Mr. Sandersons science class in the 10th grade. I remember that we were taking an exam but that may a false memory. The priciple came on the PA and told us that the shuttle had exploded on launch and I thought that he meant on the pad rather than in flight. That’s all I remember about it.