Challenger STS-51-L — January 28, 1986

I was returning a keg to a Plattsburgh AFB liquor store (Jet Engine Mech), hungover, when the news came out of the Pontiac Fiero headrest (can anyone say overextended 20 year old)?

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It’s actually one of my earliest memories. I was in pre-school and we watched it on the tv. I didn’t understand what had happened when it blew up or that anything was amiss. The teacher quickly turned off the tv and we went outside to play.
 
We were supposed to watch the launch live but due to the weather delays had to leave a day before. We ended up watching it at the Air and Space museum in Washington on a big screen they had set up in the rocket area. There was a retired Apollo program astronaut there (wish I could remember who) that was providing commentary and answering questions. He picked up what had happened almost immediately and moved a bunch of the kids (myself included) over to one of the rockets on display and pointing out things on it. I just remember the corkscrewing smoke trail and the announcer say "please stand by" over and over again.
 
There's a really interesting doc series on Netflix about it. Such a tragic event with the toll on familys and those connected to it that, in hindsight, didn't have to happen.

 
A horrible day; for every generation, there’s a thing, sometimes multiple things, that you’re never going to forget where you were. My elder relatives speak of hearing the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked; the news that Kennedy had been assassinated.. for me, this was the first of those. I can still tell you exactly where I was and who was around me in school... much like 9/11/01; you never forget where you were. 2/1/03 when shuttle Columbia was lost- same thing. It hits you so hard.
Of course we have personal moments like that- but these events are public and shared with billions others.
RIP crews of Apollo-1, STS-51L, STS-107..
 
A horrible day; for every generation, there’s a thing, sometimes multiple things, that you’re never going to forget where you were. My elder relatives speak of hearing the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked; the news that Kennedy had been assassinated.. for me, this was the first of those. I can still tell you exactly where I was and who was around me in school... much like 9/11/01; you never forget where you were. 2/1/03 when shuttle Columbia was lost- same thing. It hits you so hard.
Of course we have personal moments like that- but these events are public and shared with billions others.
RIP crews of Apollo-1, STS-51L, STS-107..
I agree. I was in the locker room after gym class, the coach put a TV (back then they were all tubes) facing out against his office window. Bunch of us gathered around to watch the coverage. I'd like to say I watched it or Reagans speech live but I'm pretty sure that's just my memory messing with me considering how many times I've seen footage of both since then.
 
I was working an equipment installation job in Plant City, Florida. The equipment was operational, so we were working second shift doing final touch-up and trouble shooting. I got up that morning just in time to see the replay on tv. I walked out on the motel balcony and could see the y-shaped contrail way off in the distance.

Beyond poignant. :(
 
Haven't wanted to watch the Netflix documentary but I still remember sitting in class with the wheeled in TV on it's giant metal podium and seeing the ship blow up.

Now, you have to admit, the joke about McAulffe's eye color is pretty funny...too soon?
 
Feynman was GD national treasure. Like one in a billion. Or a hundred billion. A no-poop Nobel Prize winner (when that was basically apolitical) who could also write in such a way that laymen could understand fairly abstruse concepts AND go on national TV and not only not sound like a Martian, but be relatively charismatic. What an amazing dude. "Maybe we had different ex-pec-tations". Lol.

Oh, and yeah, 2nd grade, I think. We watched the launch with a tube TV from the, you know, AV Dept., which was quietly rolled away after things went sideways. I don't remember anything ever having been explained to us, although I'm sure it must have been.
 
Feynman was GD national treasure. Like one in a billion. Or a hundred billion. A no-poop Nobel Prize winner (when that was basically apolitical) who could also write in such a way that laymen could understand fairly abstruse concepts AND go on national TV and not only not sound like a Martian, but be relatively charismatic. What an amazing dude. "Maybe we had different ex-pec-tations". Lol.

Oh, and yeah, 2nd grade, I think. We watched the launch with a tube TV from the, you know, AV Dept., which was quietly rolled away after things went sideways. I don't remember anything ever having been explained to us, although I'm sure it must have been.
Nah, They were not... Feynman was still alive, barely. But his era had ended. Henceforth, there would be no more explanations anymore... of anything.
 
I was 3 so not much of a memory......but I do remember the aftermath news coverage and the RTF when I got a couple years older. Definitely remember Columbia. The Netflix show was a good one, cool that they went a little better than a lot of the earlier docs that really just told the same story over and over that we already knew.
 
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