Challenger: 25 years ago today

[hookbill]

I mean time fly's it's so true. But can it actually be 25 years since this happened? I was at work at Hughes Aircraft in El Segundo California. A woman was running around saying "The Shuttle exploded. Everyone's dead."

We weren't allowed to have radio or tv's since we were a government defense corporation but our two biggest geeks had for some reason been able to obtain hand held ham radios and were filling us in.

Certainly one of those places in time where you remember exactly where you were and what was happening around you. Where were you? Were you even born yet?

[bswett]

I was born, I believe I was in 3-4 grade then. At R.J. O'Brien elementary school in E Hartford CT. Remember all too well. We were watching launch on TV at the time. Teacher hurried up and turned the TV off right after it happened. I know us kids were shocked but I think teacher was in worse shape than us children.

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[hookbill]

I was born, I believe I was in 3-4 grade then. At R.J. O'Brien elementary school in E Hartford CT. Remember all too well. We were watching launch on TV at the time. Teacher hurried up and turned the TV off right after it happened. I know us kids were shocked but I think teacher was in worse shape than us children.

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Wow, that is interesting. I'm sure the teacher was shocked, I wonder if she should have shut the tv off though? Oh well, I suppose he/she thought they were doing the right thing at the time.

[bswett]

Gotta remember, was early 80's. Sensiblities were different then. A bunch of 7-8 yr Olds and a teacher that didn't know what parents wanted their children to know about death. Its not like today where you see death everywhere, on TV, just about any urban streetcorner. Drugs weren't prevalent in elementary schools and the like...

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[WERA689]

One of the other fora I frequent had many reports of teachers shutting off the TV's in the classrooms.

I was at one of the stores in the chain I worked for. Thankfully, we sold TV's, so I was able to watch it all. I was always very into the space program, and my dad had helped design the XRV Lifting Body--which was the basis of the Shuttle design. Most of my childhood friend's fathers worked at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. I felt very personally connected to NASA and the space program, so I was just devastated when this happened.

Another friend lived in Cocoa Beach, and still has a couple of shards of the Challenger that washed up on the beach.

A very tragic day, indeed. RIP Challenger crew.

[mountaineerndixie]

Unreal that it was that long ago. I was in high school when it happened. Watched it on TV...sad sad day.

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[Skull One]

I was in my last week of Basic Training at Lackland AFB. My wife was 4 hours away buying my wedding ring.

Lackland was put on lock down and all training was put on hold for the day. That was the first day, while severing my country, that a fellow Airman was killed. At dinner that night no one said a word. At the end of dinner, one of the TIs stood up and raised his glass. Roughly 200 young men without delay followed suite. We took our last drink and marched out of the dinning hall. The only sound was the heels of our boots in perfect unison. And we made damn sure it was loud enough that even God himself could not ignore it.

[justin82]

i was 3 years old.. i dont know where i was.

[dropd1us]

I was 9, seems like it wasn't that long ago.wow time flies, that day in school is one of the few I do still remember.

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[forstir9]

This event had the same effect on me along with 9/11, the Reagan shooting, Oklahoma city bombing, New Orleans... I know where I was and what I was doing with each one of these events.

25 years ago I was in 8th grade and the teacher kept it on throughout the whole period we were in there. The next class had the TV off but we kept talking about it.


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