25 Years ago today...Challenger

[remphish1]

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/27/space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-25th-anniversary-where-were-y/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C39700

 

Remember watching it in 1st grade classroom. I can't imagine how the teacher tried to explain it to us but I remember how horrifying it was.

[cryptique]

I didn't watch it live, but I was sitting in my physics classroom (senior year of high school) and the teacher wheeled a TV in so we could watch the news coverage.

 

Hard to believe it's been a quarter century. (Even harder to believe it's been a quarter century since I was a senior in high school.)

[u2roolz]

I also was in 1st grade and watched it live. There was more at stake because our school in Lowell, MA was so close to New Hampshire where Christa McAuliffe lived. Every teacher there made a big deal out of it, as they should being proud of a fellow teacher going up to space.

 

Anyways, my best friend remembers the whole thing perfectly. I agree with his memory because I can vaguely remember snippets of my own memory. He remembers us all coming back from recess and anxiously awaiting the live coverage. We all sat there as the teacher sat across the back of the room. Then everyone got super excited when the space shuttle went up. Then it happened and everyone started crying and was in shock. Within two seconds our 1st grade teacher shut off the television and had this golden nugget to say "Well, that was that. Let's get back to our reading lesson."

 

I don't know what I would have done, if I was a teacher at that time. Or better yet, I don't know what I would have said. I guess looking back she did the best thing to just get our minds off of it. But looking back we laugh at how she handled the situation, as if what happened was normal. We really love her nonchalance handling.

 

Not to make light of the situation, but the scenario reminds me of that scene in Napoleon Dynamite where the school bus full of children comes to a stop where this man shoots a cow and the children scream in horror. No one could have prepared us for that.

[Guest Speed Racer]

I was three months into the womb at that point, so I can't say I saw it, but I did have a middle school teacher who related to us how they handled that day at the school. (This was the same man who ran in front of a car rolling down a hill from stop it and its infant passenger from rolling into traffic; broke half his body but stopped the car - fantastic man.)

 

Anyway, he said they had gathered the whole school into the auditorium where they watched it happen on the giant projector. The teachers quickly shuffled all the students back to their rooms, where they remained for the rest of the day hashing it out. He said the district unanimously banned the broadcast of live television in the classrooms after that.

[Preferred B]

I was in afternoon kindergarten, so I was at home when it happened. I wasn't watching the launch, but I was watching the Whammy game show on TV, and they interrupted it to show Challenger explosion footage. I just recall being confused and upset, and not fully understanding what was going on. I also remember that they made a Very Special Episode of the Punky Brewster show about the explosion. Punky was sad, too.

[GtrPlyr]

I was in grade 10 or 11 at the time. I didn't go to school that day, can't recall if it was a sick day or a school holiday, but I do remember watching the launch live on CNN. That was probably the biggest news story I'd seen up to that point.

[moxiebean]

What I wrote in my notebook that day (I was a college junior at the time and saw the event live on tv): "Today I watched seven people die over and over again."

 

A horrible, sad day.

[Sir Stewart]

Not to call out for the sake of calling out, but your memory is probably a little skewed if you think you watched it live:

"Few people actually saw what happened live on television. The flight occurred during the early years of cable news, and although CNN was indeed carrying the launch when the shuttle was destroyed, all major broadcast stations had cut away — only to quickly return with taped relays. With Christa McAuliffe set to be the first teacher in space, NASA had arranged a satellite broadcast of the full mission into television sets in many schools, but the general public did not have access to this unless they were one of the then-few people with satellite dishes. What most people recall as a "live broadcast" was actually the taped replay broadcast soon after the event."

7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster

 

I was 12 and remember mostly the hopeful hours following the disaster when it was reported that maybe, just maybe, an escape hatch had been launched and the 7 astronauts were safe and alive awaiting rescue floating on the ocean.

[GtrPlyr]

I'm in Canada so I might have been watching it on CTV or Global instead of CNN. Can't be certain after all these years. I do recall watching a pre-launch program then the launch, then the confusion...

[embiggen]

it was a snow day and I was at home. a friend was hanging out and we were watching it live. everyone was speechless.

[moxiebean]

Not to call out for the sake of calling out, but your memory is probably a little skewed if you think you watched it live:

"Few people actually saw what happened live on television. The flight occurred during the early years of cable news, and although CNN was indeed carrying the launch when the shuttle was destroyed, all major broadcast stations had cut away — only to quickly return with taped relays. With Christa McAuliffe set to be the first teacher in space, NASA had arranged a satellite broadcast of the full mission into television sets in many schools, but the general public did not have access to this unless they were one of the then-few people with satellite dishes. What most people recall as a "live broadcast" was actually the taped replay broadcast soon after the event."

7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster

 

I was 12 and remember mostly the hopeful hours following the disaster when it was reported that maybe, just maybe, an escape hatch had been launched and the 7 astronauts were safe and alive awaiting rescue floating on the ocean.

Ah. I must've seen when they cut into the regular programming w/ a special report. My memory's a little skewed about a lot of stuff that happened in college in 1985

[Hoodoo Man]

My memory of the day was that it was our monthly senior lunch day in which we seniors were allowed to leave the school for lunch. A bunch of my friends and I were at the Pizza Inn lunch buffet, trying to figure out a way to sneak out without paying, and watching it on the restaurant's tv. We were all bummed out about it, but I doubt any of us were very shaken. When you're 17 you don't take too much too seriously.

[lamradio]

I was five years old, living in Jacksonville Florida. I could actually see the plume of smoke from my backyard. Remember it vividly, even when I was only five.

[embiggen]

Not to call out for the sake of calling out, but your memory is probably a little skewed if you think you watched it live:

"Few people actually saw what happened live on television. The flight occurred during the early years of cable news, and although CNN was indeed carrying the launch when the shuttle was destroyed, all major broadcast stations had cut away — only to quickly return with taped relays. With Christa McAuliffe set to be the first teacher in space, NASA had arranged a satellite broadcast of the full mission into television sets in many schools, but the general public did not have access to this unless they were one of the then-few people with satellite dishes. What most people recall as a "live broadcast" was actually the taped replay broadcast soon after the event."

7 myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster

 

I was 12 and remember mostly the hopeful hours following the disaster when it was reported that maybe, just maybe, an escape hatch had been launched and the 7 astronauts were safe and alive awaiting rescue floating on the ocean.

 

my everything is skewed these days

[ih8music]

Freshman year of HS, happened sometime during my free period. I was walking the halls when I passed by a classroom that had the TV coverage going. Shortly after that, they made an announcement to the entire school about what happened. Everyone was just shocked.

 

(a friend of mine - extremely bright guy, too - was 100% certain that the shuttle was shot down by a Russian laser beam. this was around the time of Reagan's proposed Star Wars missile defense system... he thought the Soviets beat us to the punch and this was their way of announcing it. took him quite a while for him to accept the cold weather/faulty o-ring explanation.)

[theashtraysays]

I was five years old, living in Jacksonville Florida. I could actually see the plume of smoke from my backyard. Remember it vividly, even when I was only five.

I was just out of college working in south Florida. I also remember looking out the window of our building and seeing that odd shaped ball of smoke low on the horizon right after we heard about it.

[Edie]

I was 25, still in college. After class that day, I got in my car at noon CST then turned on the radio and heard the news, and broke into tears. As I recall, the Bears had just won the Super Bowl the week earlier and the city was still on a high over that. This brought us all back to reality in a hurry. I cried like crazy during Reagan's speech that night. He was very good at that.

[Sir Stewart]

As I recall, the Bears had just won the Super Bowl

 

Yeah that was a really shitty week.

[The Inside of Outside]

I'm a little disconcerted by folks who write, "I was in 1st grade..." or "I was in the womb..." I go to a Wilco show, and I don't feel old. I read that, and I feel old. (Sorry to folks older than me who are reading this).

 

Freshman in college, had turned 18 the night before, which happened to coincide with night of lost virginity. Was riding a high that next day - slept in, was in the midst of skipping classes, then back to earth with the news. Sat in a dorm room the rest of the day watching it over and over....

[Winston Legthigh]

After reading Sir Stewart's post, I'm now doubting my memory, but I swear I saw it happen live.

 

I was a sophomore in H.S., and we were in gym class - and during that part of the year, the subject was bowling, so we were out at a local lane. I had just bowled, so I was watching TV up by the bar. The reason I think I was watching it live was because I swear I remember watching the shuttle sitting on the launch pad forever, waiting for take-off. So, it's possible I was watching CNN.

 

I think I remember thinking that something didn't look quite right, and then the huge ball of flame appeared, and I called my classmates over to start watching.