Remembering Challenger

closeHey, just so you know ... this post is now about 13 years and 2 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

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 the journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.” – President Ronald Reagan

25 years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger exploded seventy-three seconds after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts aboard. January 28, 1986 is one of those days that I will never forget where I was when I heard the news.

I was in the eighth grade. We had been studying the Challenger mission STS-51L for weeks before the launch, in preparation for watching Christa McAuliffe‘s teaching broadcasts from space. I’m not sure exactly why, but we weren’t actually watching the launch in class that day (as so many other schoolkids were). Instead, I was in the band director’s office during the lunch period working on the school newspaper (the director had Newsroom by Springboard Software on his Apple II which we used to publish the paper). The principal’s voice suddenly came over the PA system announcing that the shuttle had exploded during take-off.

The enormity of what had happened really didn’t sink in until I got home from school that afternoon to watch Dan Rather and the video replay on TV over and over with my parents.

I actually found a scan of that issue of the school newspaper I was working on when we heard the news:

Reading that again reminded me that just a few days later was the Cleveland earthquake. I remember being home from school that Friday (I don’t recall if we had the day off due to Challenger or if it was previously scheduled) when the house started shaking! My sister and I thought our younger siblings were jumping on a bed and shaking the house but it was an actual earthquake. What a week in January that was …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *