I remember we all gathered in the Cafeteria at school to watch the shuttle launch (back when people cared about the Space Program). We were all gathered to watch the Teacher who was going into space, and instead saw such a horrible tragedy.
A somber salute to the Challenger and the Columbia. Although I so love watching the progress that mankind - in our time - has made in travelling into space and making its baby steps into the final frontier...it's horrifying that these tragedies occur. When they do, they knock a very sober dose of the reality of spaceflight into us all.
Same here. I was in 4th grade at the time and like probably half of all the classrooms in the country, we were watching 'the first teacher to go into space.' I just caught the back half of some special on CNN, mostly about McAuliffe, but toward the end they showed the launch and subsequent explosion pretty much in real time. I don't know that I've seen that since I was 8 years old. I've seen stills obviously, and they showed brief clips after Columbia, but only the split seconds after the actual explosion with the booster rocket trailing off to the right. Watching the whole thing again like that. Just..damn.
I was also in 4th grade at the time, but I was home sick that day. I went to the mall with my mother and when I came home it was on every channel. All i could think was damn, that's a shame.........( remember, I was only 8 at the time)
Remember class being cancelled so we could all watch this on the news in the school cafeteria. How could we forget.
It happened right around the time of my earliest memory, but I have no recollection of the event itself.
Witnessed it. Took the day off school to watch the launch from the top floor of my dad's office. I remember everything about that moment. Very sad.
I remember it well. I was a sophomore in high school. Shook my best friend up, as he was heavily into the space program. That disaster set the space program back twenty years... or more.
I was in a robotics class my freshman year when the anouncement came over the PA. I was going to the High School on the Air Force Academy at the time and was a big space nut thanks to my love of Star Trek/Wars. I felt like someone gutpunched me when the Vice Principal choked up durring the anouncement. When I finally saw the footage, I wondered how something like that could have been allowed to happened. And after it was discovered what had happened my grief turned to rage. Cause it was a similar mistake that almost cost us the lives of the Appolo 13 astronauts. I was mad that NASA could have been so complacient again. I'd hoped they had learned after Challenger but after the last accident I now hope that private contracters succede in pushing us into space where NASA has failed.
Damn. I salute those who lost their lives on the Challenger. And pretty soon it'll be the 3rd anniversary of the space shuttle Columbia incident.
I was in 6th grade and home sick from school. My friend had been home sick that whole week so I caleld him and we were talking on the phone while watching it. I remember that day very well.
I'll never forget the whole big deal abou the first teacher in space. On the day that it had happend I was in my 5th grade class and one of the office ladies came into our class room and wispered to our teacher of what had happened. After she had left our teacher gave us the bad news. It was kind of sad. I also remember going home and watching it on the new.
That was a very sad time. As it was, it just so happened that my family went out to NASA on a vacation to Florida that summer, and it was very, very somber. Sometimes it amazes me that the Columbia didn't strike such a heavy chord. Our priorities are definately messed up nowadays.
It was a very sad day indeed Just watching vids of those clips again brings a tear to my eye The "teacher in space" program was suppose to have opened the path to commercial spaceflight. It really caught my imagination when Christa McAuliffe was offered a seat on the shuttle. May she rest in peace Columbia was also sad because both missions had one thing in common . They both carried "Teachers(McAuliffe, Chulpa)" on board . NASA has actually done a page dedicated to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our exploration of the unknown http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/dor/index_noaccess.html