30 years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
30 years. I've been hiding from it a bit today. I've always thought I was in second grade, but realized yesterday that based on visual memory and my current age, I was actually in third grade. We were in music class; we were listening live on the radio because there weren't enough TVs to go around and the music room had its own dedicated stereo system. I still don't understand why we weren't all watching in a schoolwide assembly but I guess I should be glad we weren't. Space and NASA were a big part of my growing up, as was science in general, at least until my father left when I was 10. I had books, magazine articles, posters, a sticker of the mission patch. A telescope. I had a record of space mission communications, as in a big vinyl record-player record, that had somehow been pressed so the top layer was clear and had an image of a space shuttle taking off visible underneath. I had never remembered a life where American humans weren't going to space, never remembered a life without space shuttles, and would never have believed at that age that we'd ever stop going. I never knew a time when *women* weren't going to space. The thought that I or one of my classmates might go to space someday seemed eminently achievable, possibly even foregone. I remember sitting in the classroom listening up until the explosion, I remember the numb shock afterward, but I don't remember the actual moment of the explosion, how it was that we got back to our classroom, anything else that happened the rest of that day. I do remember that our teacher didn't turn off the radio right away - it was too big, too important, to just turn away from, to not listen to the aftermath. I think she talked about where she was when JFK was shot, to help us know that we'd never forget but also that it would get better.
30 years. I've been hiding from it a bit today. I've always thought I was in second grade, but realized yesterday that based on visual memory and my current age, I was actually in third grade. We were in music class; we were listening live on the radio because there weren't enough TVs to go around and the music room had its own dedicated stereo system. I still don't understand why we weren't all watching in a schoolwide assembly but I guess I should be glad we weren't. Space and NASA were a big part of my growing up, as was science in general, at least until my father left when I was 10. I had books, magazine articles, posters, a sticker of the mission patch. A telescope. I had a record of space mission communications, as in a big vinyl record-player record, that had somehow been pressed so the top layer was clear and had an image of a space shuttle taking off visible underneath. I had never remembered a life where American humans weren't going to space, never remembered a life without space shuttles, and would never have believed at that age that we'd ever stop going. I never knew a time when *women* weren't going to space. The thought that I or one of my classmates might go to space someday seemed eminently achievable, possibly even foregone. I remember sitting in the classroom listening up until the explosion, I remember the numb shock afterward, but I don't remember the actual moment of the explosion, how it was that we got back to our classroom, anything else that happened the rest of that day. I do remember that our teacher didn't turn off the radio right away - it was too big, too important, to just turn away from, to not listen to the aftermath. I think she talked about where she was when JFK was shot, to help us know that we'd never forget but also that it would get better.