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30 Years Since The Challenger Disaster: Where Were You? (space.com)

Martin S. writes: Thirty years ago today, NASA suffered a spaceflight tragedy that stunned the world and changed the agency forever. When I mentioned this at work most of my colleagues are too young to remember this first hand. When I heard the news, I was in a middle-school science class; our teacher walked us solemnly over to the school library, where we watched the television news. It hit especially hard because one of our other teachers had pursued the slot that was eventually filled by Christa McAuliffe.

4 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Elementary school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the gym, watching the launch with the rest of the school. I only remember the explosion, hearing gasps and then crying.

  2. ironically by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm probably one of the few people in this country that found out about the Challenger explosion with a sigh of relief.

    I was a senior in HS, and was taking classes offsite at a local college in the mornings. I had a tape deck in my car, so I rarely listened to news in the morning, and I think that day I'd even decided to skip class, sleep in, and screw around. So I'm minding my own business every morning.

    I had to check in to my HS for the afternoon, though. When I walked into school, it was quiet. Like, CREEPY quiet...there were something like 2500 students in my highschool, it was lunchtime, and nearly completely silent. As I came into the commons, I could see that everyone - hundreds of kids and teachers alike - was just shocked, gobsmacked.

    This was the 1980s. The era of Red Dawn, Reagan, The Day After, and 50,000 nuclear warheads. I genuinely feared that nuclear war had been announced.

    When my g/f told me that the Challenger blew up, I may have even said aloud "Oh? Is that all?"

    To this day, what I remember of that moment was my feeling of tremendous relief.

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    -Styopa
  3. Taking pictures of the event with my poleroid by BitZtream · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Watching from the beach, after my dad decided we should skip school to go watch.

    I have pictures of it from before launch til after the anomoly occurred ... And several pictures of random shots that happened when I stood in shock and awe looking at the sky and not realizing I was still pushing the button until my dad grabbed me and pointed out I was out of film.

    I was in 3rd grade.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    1. Re:Taking pictures of the event with my poleroid by MrMonty · · Score: 3, Interesting

      umm... pics or it didn't happen?

      If they're halfway decent or historically interesting, how about scan them, post them somewhere. Give us a link.