Challenger disaster was 35 years ago today

[Terabith]

Hard to believe.  

[LinRTX]

It is. My husband called from work to tell me about it. I was really busy with my brand new baby; he was only 11 days old and my first.

[elegantlion]

Wow, I remember watching the launch before I went to work. I was dating a guy from work that wanted to work in the aerospace field at the time. We got to work and just kind of cried in each other's arms. He went onto work in the airline/aerospace industry, we lost touch, but I always think about him when I remember the Challenger. 

[Katy]

It was the 28th. My birthday. 

[LAS in LA]

I was in 3rd grade and stayed in from recess to work on a project. The teachers were talking quietly to each other. After recess, they took us to the large-group-instruction room and we watched the news. I remember the lights being turned off in our hallways. Having a teacher on board Challenger made the tragedy seem closer-to-home somehow.

[Miss Tick]

We listened to Ronald Reagan's Challenger Disaster speech in a co-op class i taught a few years ago.

 

[vonfirmath]

8 minutes ago, LAS in LA said:

I was in 3rd grade and stayed in from recess to work on a project. The teachers were talking quietly to each other. After recess, they took us to the large-group-instruction room and we watched the news. I remember the lights being turned off in our hallways. Having a teacher on board Challenger made the tragedy seem closer-to-home somehow.

Having a teacher on board meant a lot more students were watching. I was in 7th grade (in houston, TX) and pulled out of PE to go to the library and watch because someone knew I was interested.

Edited January 27, 2021 by vonfirmath

[SeaConquest]

I was in 6th grade -- the same age my oldest is now. My teacher fainted because we were watching it live and she had gone pretty far in the competition. 

[Katy]

Our whole school (in Florida) went outside to watch. One kid in my class understood what happened when it exploded and started screaming.  Some of the teachers quietly cried. They canceled classes for the rest of the day and we all went home as soon as the bus drivers could be called in. 

[Gobblygook]

One of my most vivid childhood memories ...

[Jann in TX]

I was in college-- the class I was in was dismissed for the day... our instructor was the 'stand by' for Christa (the teacher)

[TravelingChris]

I was in my first job out of college, at the Newberry Library in Chicago.  I had taken a lunch break and was walking and saw it on a tv in a store window.

[Selkie]

I was in high school. My best friend was home sick with bronchitis and during lunch hour, I snuck off campus to go see her (she lived two blocks from school). I saw it on tv at her house.

[Lady Florida.]

It was actually 35 years ago tomorrow.

I remember how freezing cold it was that day, unusually cold for Florida. I stood in the parking lot of the high school where I taught. The school is right across the river from KSC and the launch pad. My developmentally disabled students and I watched it explode in the sky above us. So did most of the rest of the school including teachers, students and staff. Usually whenever there was a launch someone from the office would announce over the loudspeaker when the countdown was at about 2 minutes so those who wanted to go out and watch had time to get out and get settled in a viewing spot in the school parking lot. It was quite common for teachers and students to stop a lesson and walk outside to watch a launch, then go back inside and resume lessons as if nothing happened.

The rest of the day at school was anything but normal. No more learning/lessons were even attempted. None of us knew what was really happening. Many kids had parents who worked at the space center and teachers and staff had spouses or other family members who worked there (it's hard to throw a stone around here without hitting someone who works in the space industry or is related to one who does). A lot of the kids were worried that debris was falling back down on the space center and that their parents were in danger. 

I was dating a guy in the Air Force at the time, stationed at Patrick AFB. He flew rescue helicopters and they were searching the ocean for the survivors they didn't realize they wouldn't find. He could barely talk about it for weeks. 

It was an awful day. 😢

Edited January 28, 2021 by Lady Florida.

[Lady Florida.]

2 hours ago, Katy said:

Our whole school (in Florida) went outside to watch. One kid in my class understood what happened when it exploded and started screaming.  Some of the teachers quietly cried. They canceled classes for the rest of the day and we all went home as soon as the bus drivers could be called in. 

Where did you go to school? PM me if you want. If you read my post above - I was teaching at Titusville High at the time.

[gardenmom5]

4 hours ago, Katy said:

It was the 28th. My birthday. 

Dh's niece's BD is 9/11 (in the 80s).  She was going to have the middle name of Osana, after dh's great-grandmother.  Instead, sil angelized it to Susanne

4 hours ago, LinRTX said:

It is. My husband called from work to tell me about it. I was really busy with my brand new baby; he was only 11 days old and my first.

My mother called me.  I had a 3mo old, and a toddler.

[Starr]

I remember turning the TV on for a quick watch just before I left for work. I never watched TV in the morning. 😞

[popmom]

Our high school chemistry teacher was the finalist from our state to go. My grandfather worked for NASA--for years in Huntsville, Al then Cape Canaveral. He specifically worked on the solid rocket boosters for the shuttle. I grew up going to shuttle launches but of course being in high school a state away I wasn't there in person for the Challenger launch that day.

My grandfather was there along with my grandmother--for the launch. They knew it went wrong--they had seen so many launches. I heard afterward. It was so heartbreaking to me. The chem teacher at my school was of course deeply disturbed and emotional. If you've ever attended a rocket or shuttle launch--when it goes off successfully--the emotions run high. Really high. To see the Challenger explosion was to have an emotional response exponentially opposite than I'd ever experienced at a successful launch. Heartbreaking would be an understatement.

. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by popmom

[Terabith]

I was in fourth grade.  I really thought it was going to be the defining event of our generation.  Who knew there would be so many more "unprecedented events?"

[bookbard]

In Australia - remember coming out to breakfast and seeing my mother listening to the radio and crying - she explained what happened. I don't remember any mention at school or anything though. 

[sweet2ndchance]

I was 7 years old and happened to be home sick from school that day. I remember lying on the couch watching the whole thing on television. My now husband was barely 24 hours old.