01/28/1986

[2muchcoffeeman]

In Memoriam of the Challenger 7 ...

Challenger crew (l-r): Ellison Onizuka, Michael Smith, Christa McAuliffe, **** Scobee, Gregory Jarvis, Ronald McNair, and Judith Resnik

 

[BYH]

An awful, awful day. Will never forget my science teacher walking in to tell us and me saying "C'mon you're making that up." He said "I'd never make that up."

RIP.

 

[Trouser_Buddah]

Same deal....we were at lunch and our science teacher broke the news.

RIP.

 

[JBHawkEye]

An awful, awful day. Will never forget my science teacher walking in to tell us and me saying "C'mon you're making that up." He said "I'd never make that up."

RIP.

I was coming back to the dorm from a class when a guy who lived down the hall stops me and tells me what happened. I didn't believe him. I walked about a half-block when I thought, "Now why would he make something like that up?"

 

[Armchair_QB]

I walked into the Student Union building a few minutes after it happened and a bunch of people were huddled around the TV. The image that I will always remember is the shot of Christa McAuliffe's mother on the viewing stand as Challenger exploded. She had a look on her face that said she had no idea what she had just seen and that she didn't comprehend what had just happened to her daughter.

 

[wickedwritah]

I was in second grade. My old-as-bones teacher put on the radio for us. We didn't really understand the magnitude of what was going on.

 

[imjustagirl2]

I was in fifth grade, waiting to go to lunch, and the teacher walked in to tell us. She was also my science teacher, oddly enough. We delayed lunch school-wide to watch coverage.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

An awful, awful day. Will never forget my science teacher walking in to tell us and me saying "C'mon you're making that up." He said "I'd never make that up."

RIP.

I was coming back to the dorm from a class when a guy who lived down the hall stops me and tells me what happened. I didn't believe him. I walked about a half-block when I thought, "Now why would he make something like that up?"

I was also walking into the dorm. My room was right above the front door -- my roommate looked out and yelled "Get your ass up here! The space shuttle just crashed!"

 

[Starman]

I was in my first month of my first full-time job, living at home with my parents until an apartment opened up, commuting 55 miles each way (after sending out last page at 1 a.m.)

So, when I rolled out of bed every day at noon, I was not exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I joined my mom and dad at the family room table for coffee (dad worked midnight shift at HIS paper, and he rarely got up much before 10-11 himself).

We were watching CNN, which was showing the launch live. Since I had been a major space maven in the 1960s, through Apollo, I was still the closest thing we had to an "expert commentator."

The shuttle lifted off. Nothing appeared unusual at the moment (although if you watch the tapes now, you can see signs of why what happened happened), and it continued to climb throught the "go at throttle-up" command.

When the fireball erupted on screen, I just blurted out, "HOLY ****!!"

My parents had heard me swear plenty before, but rarely over morning coffee. My mother said, "What's wrong? What happened?"

"They're dead," I said. The guy CNN had commentating on the liftoff was babbling stuff about "maybe they can glide to a landing," "I think I see a parachute," yadda yadda, but I knew how the shuttle was (and still is) designed.

If anything goes wrong before those SRB's jettison, you're done. There is no escape system.

"You better call your M.E.," I told my dad. He was wire editor at his paper. "You're gonna have a big night ahead of you." He was already on the phone. He ended up working about a 14-hour shift that night.

As did I. My dinky daily pulled me off my sports-editor duties to help put together a couple of pages on the shuttle.

 

[DisembodiedOwlHead]

I feel like I post this every year, but Jan. 28 is my birthday. I was in school. Everybody watching on TV. They sent us home before I got the traditional birthday cupcake at lunch.

 

[wickedwritah]

My parents had heard me swear plenty before, but rarely over morning coffee.

Mr. Starman Justice, swear? Never.

 

[mpcincal]

I was a senior in high school. Bell for the end of first period had just gone off and as we were getting up from our desks, the principal came over the loudspeaker and gave us the news. A TV tuned into the coverage was waiting for me in second period. Our school was right near an Air Force base, so the tragedy had some extra impact on a lot of the people in the area.

BTW, I always found it kind of an oddity that three of the worst space exploration accidents -- The Apollo fire that killed Gus Grissom, among others (Jan. 27), and the Challenger (Jan. 28) and Columbia (Feb. 1) disasters -- all occured within a week of each other, datewise.

 

[Clerk Typist]

Those born Sept. 11, 2001 will turn 6 this year. They'll be just old enough to start to comprehend things if they happen to watch the evening news. What will that feel like?

 

[Batman]

I was in fourth grade whent he Challenger exploded. My teacher sent me to the office to pick up a memo or something for her, and they had it on a TV there. Guess it was an hour or so after it happened, in early afternoon. I just glanced at it and saw the rockets going, and thought it was a picture of Halley's Comet. Didn't find out about the shuttle until I got home a couple hours later and my sister told me.

 

[User 1019]

I was out of school that day. Snow day in the Deep South.

We were outside playing in this foreign substance when one of the older kids in the neighborhood came outside and told us. We shrugged our shoulders and went back to making snowballs.

7-year olds. Yeesh.

 

[cranberry]

I was desk supervisor (pulling an odd day shift for a change) at my bureau, watching the space shuttle coverage on TV while I was taking a call. I just stopped talking to the guy on the phone and hung up without explanation.

 

[Birdscribe]

It was intersession and I was a junior in college. Normally, I slept until 9:30-10, but because I had a day shift at the paper I was working PT at, I was up. My roomie was getting ready for work and called me out to the TV.

Like on Sept. 11, 2001, my brain was having a hard time processing the images in front of me. I couldn't make it fit in my mental Samsonite. But I remember Tom Brokaw in that sonorous voice of his pointing out various elements of the tragedy.

Where I live, there are plenty of reminders about the Challenger, since it was built up here in the AV. There's an elementary school (Challenger) and a community center named after it.

When Columbia exploded in 2003, they were in the middle of building a new high school that was going to be named after Pete Knight, a test pilot, Air Force officer and longtime assemblyman/state senator from our area. There was a movement to re-name it Columbia High.

Unfortunately, it was rejected. Instead, they re-named one of the streets here Columbia Way.

Cranberry, normally, I would say "nice thread." But this isn't a nice topic.

Instead, I'll say it was a well-deserved thread. :'(

 

[Big Buckin' agate_monkey]

I feel like I post this every year, but Jan. 28 is my birthday. I was in school. Everybody watching on TV. They sent us home before I got the traditional birthday cupcake at lunch.

Damn smart people at NASA.

Edit: I hate myself for having spellers block.

 

[D-Backs Hack]

Freshman year, PE class, first hour, sitting on the curb, waiting for the teacher to come out and the day's basketball games to start.

Nobody picked up a ball that day.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I was in sixth grade. I think we came in early to watch it and after it happened, the teachers huddled with a principal and they canceled school. I think we missed the next day as well. Our first day back, as a class project, we wrote letters to the families of the seven who died.

It's one of a handful of dates during my lifetime where I think everybody my age (33) remembers where they were when it happened.