January 28, 1986

[kham]

31 years ago today
OV-99 Space Shuttle Challenger, broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff. For many people, it's an event as memorable for where you were, and what you were doing, as any in history. The findings of the Rogers Commission are well documented, detailing the cause. But it should be remembered, that without Dr. Richard Feynman, the report might have not been as blunt. His lesson, that you cannot spin reality, is something that can never, ever be forgotten


Ronald Reagan's Speech that evening

[QuicksandMania]

I worked as a student intern for NASA at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for only three weeks before witnessing this tragedy directly from the viewing area near the Launch Control Center (LCC). Many years later, as a full-time seasoned engineer, I witnessed the Columbia tragedy indirectly while waiting for the shuttle landing as part of the landing recovery team on the runway at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), wherein loss of contact minutes before scheduled landing followed by no shuttle in sight told us all something was wrong. I will never forget either incident.

I look forward to the forthcoming Space Launch System (SLS) as well as various commercial endeavors to return human launch systems to United States soil after years of depending on Russia for American human access to space.

[Duncan Edwards]

Happened to be off from work that day and watched the first 30 seconds of launch before the networks cut away. Grabbed the phone and listened to the NSF Spaceline pay feed. It cut in just as I heard "...obviously a major malfunction." Just as I heard that the CBS feed came back on the tv. As soon as I saw the SRB's flying across the sky I waited for them to get blown and sure enough there they went. I was an ultimate spaceflight nerd and I knew what was happening as soon as I saw it. I watched with disgust as Dan Rather identified a falling SRB drogue as an "escape capsule" and knew it was already hopeless. 1986 was going to be a big year with launches into polar orbit and the Centaur upper stage among other things. That moment kind of killed a lot of hopes for the shuttle from which it never recovered.

[PM2K]

I was in university when this happened, on a friend's birthday, no less. Never saw it live, but many, many times in the news reports that followed.
I think one of the saddest moments was the footage showing the teacher Christa McAuliffe's school and class watching the launch live, then seeing as she was killed before their eyes. The looks on those kids faces... I'll never get that out of my head. I mean, they idolized her... their teacher, the astronaut... and then she was gone, along with the other six crew members.

A harsh lesson to learn so early in life.

[kham]

Was sitting in the cafeteria playing cards when it happened with back to the projection-TV. It was a slow day, and only one more class to come, so was mostly just killing time. Someone yelled that the shuttle had blown up, and I said something like 'yeah , right' and turned around and saw it. The usual arts-students speak while my brain caught up from Hearts to aerospace stuff. The boosters wandering off, and a disappearing orange fireball, told me the ET was gone, and that meant the orbiter was gone. Got home in afternoon, and I don't know what was worse; the endless repeating coverage, that really didn't show anything just yet (but hints) or the mindless drivel from 'experts' . Like Duncan, some of us had grown up watching things since Gemini, and listening to these assholes was just painful.