40th Anniversary of the Challenger Explosion

CarolinaFever

CarolinaFever

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Today is the 40th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. I was in 6th grade when it happened. I remember my class was at lunch when word got to us about the explosion. Our teacher took us to the library after lunch to watch the news coverage. Everyone was silent watching the TV. It was so sad.
 
I was in 4th grade but got sick at school that day so I didn't see it live - my mom told me what happened after she picked me up to drive me home - I'm pretty sure I cried when she told - I remember a day or two later in school we watched President Reagan's speech regarding it
 
CarolinaFever said:
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. I was in 6th grade when it happened. I remember my class was at lunch when word got to us about the explosion. Our teacher took us to the library after lunch to watch the news coverage. Everyone was silent watching the TV. It was so sad.
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I was in law school at the time. I remember joining a group of other students in a classroom around a TV. It was stunning, but to my mind, not unexpected. Space flight is incredibly dangerous, with many systems that can fail. We had been really lucky in the years after Apollo 1.
 
I don't remember if it was just the end of quarter break or if we were out due to snow but I was not in school then. I can remember being at Friendly center in Greensboro with my mother and grandmother and some guy in a store told us that it had just happened
 
GoHeelsweeeehoooo said:
I was in 4th grade but got sick at school that day so I didn't see it live - my mom told me what happened after she picked me up to drive me home - I'm pretty sure I cried when she told - I remember a day or two later in school we watched President Reagan's speech regarding it
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... with one of the all-time great lines: "slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God." I tear up every time I hear that line from his speech.
 
I was in a weekly meeting in the plant manager's office when the phone on his desk rang. The plant manager got a real sour expression on his face because he REALLY didn't like this meeting to be interrupted. When his expression changed, it was weird. He hung up and said, IIRC, "The space shuttle just blew up while launching. Every one on board was killed." We all sat there stunned for a few beats and then the plant manager asked the guy who had been interrupted by the phone call to continue his report.

Unrealated sidenote: I will go to my grave believing the White House pressured NASA to launch because President Reagan didn't want to change his State of Union address to omit the part about there being a "teacher in space" as he spoke.
 
BlooVooDoo said:
I assume you’ve seen For All Mankind on AppleTV?
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Sorry to piggyback on your post to griff and sidebar on top of it too, but GREAT show. Very under-appreciated too, IMO. Kind of gets overshadowed by Apple's other more high-profile series like Ted Lasso, Shrinking, and/or Severance. I think S5 starts in March(?).
 
Awful, awful day - a true national tragedy. I was in 9th grade and in art class when it was announced.

IIRC, for the rest of the week, we all watched the coverage on the "TV on a cart" setups they had at school in each classroom.
 
wmheel1287 said:
Absolutely one of the best lines and quite possibly the best delivery ever by a POTUS.
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Not a fan of Reagan today, but as a young man straight from my parent's Republican home I did cast my first vote for president for him back in 1984. I will say that Reagan in his prime could give a helluva speech, and the Challenger speech that afternoon was one of his best. I still remember it. His speech at the memorial service for the astronauts was also good, and his behavior with the grieving family members was exactly what you'd hope and expect to see in a president - gracious, warm, comforting. He hugged several of the kids walking through the line of families.

And I still remember watching the explosion on TV like it was yesterday - it's hard for me to believe that it's been four decades. One scene from that day I've always remembered was watching ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings the day of the explosion, and they showed the high school where Christa McAuliffe, the first "Teacher in Space", taught in New Hampshire. The school had set up the gym so that all of the students and teachers could watch the launch live, and they gave everybody kazoos and party hats and so on. And when the shuttle launched they were all cheering and going wild, and then you saw the terrible silence as they gradually realized what had happened, and then the sobbing and grief. Just heartbreaking to watch the whole film clip from beginning to end.
 
I was in Analysis (pre-calculus) class junior year high school waiting for it to start when the announcement came over the intercom.
Our teacher (who was awesome) wasn’t there. After about 20 minutes of sitting there wondering where he was someone from the office came in and said he left for the day.
We found out later he had applied to be the teacher on the shuttle and apparently made it pretty far through the process before he got cut.
 
UNCMSinLS said:
... with one of the all-time great lines: "slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God." I tear up every time I hear that line from his speech.
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Peggy Noonan
In 1984, Noonan, as a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, wrote his "The boys of Pointe du Hoc" speech on the 40th anniversary of D-Day. She also wrote Reagan's address to the nation after the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, drawing upon the poet John Magee's words about aviators who "slipped the surly bonds of earth ... and touched the face of God." The latter is ranked as the eighth-best American political speech of the 20th century, according to a list compiled by professors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Texas A&M University.
 
That day I skipped school, first time ever, and was at the put put with a couple of friends. Watching the launch on a TV there.
 
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