Challenger January 28, 1986

killdeer43 · Jan 28, 2014

Where were you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster

I was in Alanta, watching with other shocked viewers in the waiting room at the children's hospital at Emory University.

Sad news day, :sad:
Joe

walrus · Jan 28, 2014

I was at work. Everyone stopped to watch the television, in quiet shock.

walrus

FNG · Jan 28, 2014

I was at sea, keeping the world safe from Communist aggression.

ladytexan · Jan 28, 2014

I was teaching class at Purdue University.......and heard the news in the hallway after class let out in a lecture hall not too far from Grissom Hall. Quite a long list of astronauts who are Purdue grads....quite a sad day. Dang "O" rings!

jcwu · Jan 28, 2014

I was in homeroom, in 8th grade, with all the other 8th grades, glued to the TV, watching in awe as the shuttle launched.... and then, silence. Not knowing how to react. I don't remember anything that happened the rest of that day.

I think what I felt was shock, and perhaps on some level, as much as an 8th grader can comprehend, grief. But I think I didn't understand what I was feeling.

Kids being cruel as they are, pretty soon on campus we were hearing, "Do you know what N.A.S.A. stands for? Need Another Seven Astronauts!" I didn't understand the disrespect, I didn't understand it was inappropriate to laugh. I repeated the joke several times myself.

I guess kids just deal with trauma in their own way.

fronobulax · Jan 28, 2014

I was at work. What I recall most vividly was that the poster on the left in the image below was on the wall of the lab I was in when I heard the news.

dreadnut · Jan 28, 2014

I was at work, someone had it on the tv so we all watched the launch. Then unbelief - the horror of the moment when we all understood the astronauts were gone was very sobering. Not much else seemed very important after that. It was only surpassed by the events of 9/11/2001 in my estimation.

dapmdave · Jan 28, 2014

Also at work, at the NWS office in Huntsville, Alabama. Since Huntsville is the location of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, it was quite a blow to the local community.

jeffcoop · Jan 28, 2014

I was in my college dormroom, watching the launch on a 12" black and white tv. I didn't leave that room for hours.

geoguy · Jan 30, 2014

I heard the news on my car radio while out running errands, just before leaving for a two-month work trip in the Middle East.

Reagan's (speechwriter's) words still move me, describing the astronauts who . . . "slipped the surly bonds of Earth, to touch the face of God".

jeffcoop · Jan 30, 2014

geoguy said:
I heard the news on my car radio while out running errands, just before leaving for a two-month work trip in the Middle East.

Reagan's (speechwriter's) words still move me, describing the astronauts who . . . "slipped the surly bonds of Earth, to touch the face of God".

Reagan's speechwriter borrowed those words from a World War II American aviator who died in England, but they were appropriate, and deeply moving, in the context of the Challenger disaster.

mavuser · Jan 30, 2014

3rd grade. remember vivdly like it was yesterday, the principal walked in, had some brief words with the teacher, and then we were given the sad news. we turned the small tv on (that each classroom had) to tune into the aftermath. watched it the rest of the day

bobdcat · Jan 30, 2014

Why we need to continue to explore: "Per Ardua Ad Astra", by Phil Plait

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr...versaries_of_deaths_in_space_exploration.html

Westerly Wood · Jan 30, 2014

in college, watching this from my dorm room. i don't know if anyone else had the same sinking feeling before the explosion, but I had this weird feeling that something was going to go wrong. then it happened. it was just terrible.

killdeer43 · Jan 30, 2014

The big, manned NASA launches always had/have the potential for tragedy, especially when you consider the scale of the whole thing. Everything has to be just right and, in the case of Challenger, it was faulty O-rings, IIRC.
You can go down the list from the first to the most recent and see that this entire undertaking has always had perilous overtones.

Joe

Challenger January 28, 1986

killdeer43

Reverential Member

walrus

Reverential Member

FNG

Enlightened Member

ladytexan

Senior Member

jcwu

Senior Member

fronobulax

Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods

dreadnut

Gone But Not Forgotten

dapmdave

Enlightened Member

jeffcoop

Senior Member

geoguy

Senior Member

jeffcoop

Senior Member

mavuser

Enlightened Member

bobdcat

Member

Westerly Wood

Venerated Member

killdeer43

Reverential Member