Wil Wheaton and I share a brain today
Wil Wheaton: librarians are awesome
I ♥ U Wil!
Wil Wheaton: from the vault: some of us are looking at stars
Wil shares his memory of January 28, 1986, when Challenger was lost 73 seconds after launch. I remember that day very well too. We didn't have a big viewing event at our school, but at launch time, my class happened to be in possession of one of the TVs. It was essentially a free wheeling study hall instead of Phys Ed outside on a cold January day, and our coach often let us bring in tapes to watch, soap operas, music videos, that sort of thing.
Coach had stepped out of the room for moment, and when he came back in, we could tell something was wrong when he told us to see if we could get the local station on our dinky little TV and rabbit ear antenna. My best friend and I were and still are NASA geeks, so we knew the instant when it all went wrong during the first replay of the disaster we saw. Everyone else in the class wasn't as familiar as we were with what a launch should look like, and they insisted it had to be something normal like a booster rocket separation.
Then the news reports were agreeing with us, and although they didn't know what happened, my friend and I were almost certain that whatever happened, it would be pretty much impossible to survive. Another friend of ours figured out a friend in another class went to Space Camp about a year prior and one of the astronauts onboard was one of her instructors, so our coach asked the three of us if we were OK to go and tell her. Word was spreading to the teachers, but not all the students knew yet, and most hadn't seen it. Until I saw it, I wouldn't have believe it either.
So to this day, during every launch, when I hear the command to to go with throttle up, I hold my breath just like Wil. Remember Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo 1. They were looking at stars.
I ♥ U Wil!
Wil Wheaton: from the vault: some of us are looking at stars
Wil shares his memory of January 28, 1986, when Challenger was lost 73 seconds after launch. I remember that day very well too. We didn't have a big viewing event at our school, but at launch time, my class happened to be in possession of one of the TVs. It was essentially a free wheeling study hall instead of Phys Ed outside on a cold January day, and our coach often let us bring in tapes to watch, soap operas, music videos, that sort of thing.
Coach had stepped out of the room for moment, and when he came back in, we could tell something was wrong when he told us to see if we could get the local station on our dinky little TV and rabbit ear antenna. My best friend and I were and still are NASA geeks, so we knew the instant when it all went wrong during the first replay of the disaster we saw. Everyone else in the class wasn't as familiar as we were with what a launch should look like, and they insisted it had to be something normal like a booster rocket separation.
Then the news reports were agreeing with us, and although they didn't know what happened, my friend and I were almost certain that whatever happened, it would be pretty much impossible to survive. Another friend of ours figured out a friend in another class went to Space Camp about a year prior and one of the astronauts onboard was one of her instructors, so our coach asked the three of us if we were OK to go and tell her. Word was spreading to the teachers, but not all the students knew yet, and most hadn't seen it. Until I saw it, I wouldn't have believe it either.
So to this day, during every launch, when I hear the command to to go with throttle up, I hold my breath just like Wil. Remember Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo 1. They were looking at stars.