20 years ago this week...

[Xharryb]

As I was flipping through channels last night, I came across something that reminded me of the significance of this week in history. It was 20 years ago this Saturday, January 28, 1986 to be exact, that our nation watched the tragedy that was the Space Shuttle Challenger.

I was a young kid at the time who like many other young kids of the era dreamed one one day taking off in one of those shuttles myself. This was one of the first big national tragedies that I experienced in my lifetime. Living in Florida, we often went just outside of our school to watch the shuttles take off into the sky. I'm pretty sure this was what we were doing on the day of the Challenger launch, though it is possible we may have watched that particular one on television. I'm a little fuzzy on the specifics. They held some sort of special memorial at the school shortly after, but I remember being upset that I had to miss this event due to a previously scheduled field trip that my class was going to be on at the time.

Anyone else care to share your memories?

[ksejr1]

wow, I remember watching that on t.v at school, I was in the 4th grade

[penguinsoda]

Wow, that had totally slipped my mind about this. This is one of the moments in history that I remember very vividly. I remember sitting on the edge of my coffee table watching the news getting ready to go to bed the night before they were to attempt to lift off again. As I sat there, listening to them talking about all the delays and problems, the thought came into my mind something to the effect of, "They're not going to make it. The shuttle will never make if to space. They have a different destiny to fulfill."

I never turn on the tv before I go to work, (still don't) so the next morning I was dropping my daughter off at preschool before I headed to work. I heard the news on the radio. Its hard to explain the feeling I had when I heard it. I pretty much floated through the day. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before or since. But I still get a chill when I think about that moment in time, and that moment in history.

I have a poster that I think I got out of Omni magazine years ago, dedicated to them. When I had the computer lab at the school, every year I would put that poster up.

The Future Belongs to the Brave......

True statement then, and no less true today.

[anniem8]

I remember that morning very well. I was pregnant with my first child (she will be 20 in July). I was a pre-school teacher and worked 9:30 to 6:30 so I was watching the lift off at home while my class was watching at the school. As soon as I realized what had happened, I hurried to the school thinking the kids would be upset. Luckily, 4 year olds don't have a good idea of what is going on. We teachers were very upset though and we had a balloon lift off a few days later in the crew's memory.

[NemoZorro]

Very sad day indeed. My wife (we were just about to meet at that time) is and has always wanted to be a teacher, so it was especially hard for her. She worked at a Challenger Center in Chattanooga TN for a couple of years and got to meet June Scoby Rogers.

Side note - "Wall Street" with Charlie Sheen had a major faux pas - it was set in 1985 and there is a comment about Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) selling stock minutes after the Challenger crash.

[Mousey Girl]

I was driving to school. It came on the radio, but it wasn't unitl the announcement came at school that it really sunk in.

[Mr. Lightyear999]

Along with Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 another day we'll never forget and will always remember where you were. The memory and sorrow is still there after 20 years, just as it was the day it happened.