30 Years Ago Today, Where Were You?

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65LoveAffair

65LoveAffair

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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. On that day, 7 brave astronauts lost their lives in the pursuit of science and education. I was in 4th grade, looking forward to the first live broadcast later that day from Christa McCauliffe, the teacher who was on that flight. She was scheduled to give many live broadcasts to children around the country over the next several days. Instead, the principal of my school announced over the intercom that there had been an accident with the launch. The decision was made to bring us older kids at the school into the library, one class at a time, and show us the recording they had made of the launch. I remember hoping that the astronauts were going to be okay, until I saw the explosion. When I saw that, I knew they were gone.

As President Reagan said at the time,
“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God. ”
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I had just gotten home to my wife at the mobile home we lived in. Our children at that time were newborn, 2 , and 4. Today is my Wifes 59th Birthday. At the time, I was building our first house, which we still live in. Moved into it in the fall of 86.
God Bless those Brave Souls.
 
I was at Fire Station 54 having a meeting with my Captain and the Fire Chief. The Chief came out and called us both in the office and told the both of us that I was being promoted to Captain at the beginning of the next pay cycle. While we were in the office talking, one of the troops knocked on the door and told us that the tv was reporting the Challenger disaster as it was happening. So we walked out of the office and started watching it unfold. It was awful what happened to those folks. May they RIP...
 
I was at work - I remember passing by a break room that had a TV in it and seeing the smoke trails in the sky - being a minor league NASA buff I instantly knew something was wrong with the mission.. brutal stuff.
 
I was sitting in the 7th grade history class when the reading teacher came in and told our history teacher what was going on. She immediately turned on the TV.

Two classes later I was sitting in biology. Our biology teacher was a zombie for the next couple of days. He was one of the finalists to go up with that launch.
 
I had been in the Air Force just over a year. Just returned to the transmitter site after being on a job at the control tower. Since we were an electronics shop, we had a television rigged up. Everyone in the shop was watching the take-off. One of those days we will never forget.

May God continue to bless the families of those who gave their life that day.
 
I was in class for auto air conditioning. Staff came in the class with a television so we could all watch the launch. What a sad day.
 
I wasn't born yet, but my grandpa worked for NASA from 1958-1994. He trained astronauts and knew everybody on the shuttle.
 
I was working for Walmart setting up a new store in Carlsbad, NM. We were at the hotel in the lobby waiting for the rest of the crew to come down and join us. The TV was on and the desk clerk came over and told us the Challenger had exploded a few seconds after take off.

We didn't know what to think because we could still see Challenger sitting on the launch pad. The clerk told us her brother was in the Navy and had caller her to tell her what happened. I suppose we were watching some sort of a delayed broadcast. I remember how upset everyone was that day, it was really hard to go to work!
 
Calling on a client at his home about 25 miles from town. He opened the door, his face was white with shock and he asked us if we had heard the news. We had not and we went into his living room and watched TV for an hour about the event. A shocking bad day-the business was not discussed that day. (when I was a kid, my dad used to get us up in the middle of the night to watch "sputnick" fly across the night sky and tell us how the world was going to change)
DR
 
I was home from work, sick and laying on the sofa, watching the launch. -- Very sad - God Bless them.
 
I was at work in El Paso as a rookie Border Patrol Agent. When I was first told of the disaster, probably by a co-worker, I would not believe it. I had too much faith in our technology at the time and had always stood in awe during all of the space programs, beginning with Mercury and Gemini. Obviously, I was wrong and I was in shock to find it was a true story.
 
i was in the third grade when i heard about it. i remember watching the footage and i noticed the cause of it fairly quickly.
 
I will never forget that day. I was living and working in Clearwater FL. I was welding on low pressure air hedder pipes for a company that made water purifying systems. I was outside welding when the guy welding inside came out and said that the space shuttle had exploded. We all looked up in the sky and sure enough, there in front of our eyes was the plume of smoke in that Y pattern. The boss came out and told us all to stop working. He went and got a ladder and we all went on top of the roof of the building and watched for a while. I think we were up there for almost an hour. It was kind of surreal. Then he said "alright, I guess we better be gettin" back to work". I remember feeling sad because for the most part, me and eveyone else didn't even know that the space shuttle was launching that day, it had gotten so mundane that every one kind of forgot about it. It made everyone stop and think that day.
 
I was in 9th grade in English class. I remember the teacher bringing the tv in on one of those big rolling carts so we could watch it. What a sad day. Everybody was speechless.
 
i was off that day. i went to watch the launch at a buddy's house who worked for NASA at the Michoud location where they built the external tanks. sad day for sure.
 
I felt like I took a hit that day. After I graduated from high school I worked at Martin Merrita where they built the external tank(big brown one). Even though it wasn't the fault of the tank I still took it hard we lost a lot of good people that day.
 
We lived in NJ until August of that year. Joyce was a school teacher, I worked for IBM back then. Kids were 12, 6, and 2 years old.
 
7th grade math class. I remember the teacher wheeling in the A/V cart so we could watch the news. My father worked for NASA at Ames Research Center so my family had space in the blood. Sad day...
 
I was setting up motor controls at DUPONT (Grace Electric) and seen it on the news on my return home to my wife and two young children. They will never be forgotten, 7 brave astronauts we lost. RIP
 
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