Challenger Anniversary: 25 Years Ago Today

[mabfan]

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger tragedy, the day when the space shuttle exploded and NASA lost seven astronauts: Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, Gregory B. Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. Their sacrifice is memorialized at Arlington National CemeteryFor the people of

Comments

[jamietr]

I was in junior high at the time and I still remember it clearly. I was very into the space program (I wanted to be an astronaut) and after hearing about it and before learning much of the details, I remember talking with friends, telling them that if the explosion took place at a certain point, the crew could still make it back to Earth--or even into orbit.

It wasn't until I saw my science teacher crying that I realized it was a complete loss.

Hard to believe that was an entire generation ago.

[glishara]

I was only 5 at the time, but I still remember it. It's one of my very earliest memories. My parents were watching the news broadcasts that evening in the living room, and they kept showing the explosion, and my father told me it had blown up and killed the astronauts. I thought it must have been a bomb, because that was my association with things blowing up. For years afterwards, I was always terrified of things blowing up and killing me.

[blergeatkitty]

I don't think I knew you went to Hunter. I was on Jeopardy in the same week as someone who was either your class or a year or two behind. This came up because one of the other contestants was also a Hunter alum (neither of them were still living in New York at the time) and Trebek seized upon this as being a very cool thing.

I honestly can't remember if I saw the Challenger explode live or if I saw the footage later - I was in the first grade when it happened and I do remember everyone being very excited about it, and there being a lot of build-up to it. We definitely watched footage of the aborted launch date prior to the explosion and I definitely saw the explosion within a day or two of it happening but no idea if it was in the classroom or at home.

[violetcheetah]

I was in 8th grade and home from school on a snow day. I didn't see the live launch, but I came in from shoveling and they were showing the recording of the footage over and over. It must have been pretty soon after it happened, with the newscasters still trying to get info on what exactly had occurred and what it meant. I was generally emotionally numb during that part of my life, and I didn't want my parents to see me cry, so I just sat, kind of subdued, until my feet had warmed up enough that I could go outside again. I think I spent most of the rest of the day like that, going outside until I was too cold to stand it, then coming back in and seeing what the latest news was

[delkytlar]

I have to admit that I remember the Challenger explosion all too well. We were watching it as a group in the high school auditorium.
The dangers of spaceflight were well-known then, and remain so even now, and yet we were shocked. These were brave, inspiring people taking significant risks to advance human knowledge (and potentially human dominion in our segment of the universe), and we'd already started to think of the shuttle launches as routine, and even boring. The Challenger crew were the latest (but not the last) explorers to lose their lives in the name of exploration. They are rightly to be honored, and remembered, for it.

Not to take anything at all away from those brave men and women aboard Challenger; however, to me, Challenger does not live in my memory as equivalent to the Kennedy assassination. The John Lennon murder holds that spot in my mind and heart.