http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/09/challenger-video-film-space-shuttle-explosion_n_1333794.html#s768203&title=Challenger_Launch

8mm footage from the crowd.  Supposed to be newly discovered.

America has grown adults that dream of having the president pay their mortgage and electric bills.
 

I remember my dad waking me up before school to watch the first launch.  I took a picture of my son watching the last launch.  I have many memories of the shuttle program.  I  liked to go outside at night and watch the shuttles orbit overhead.

That's what got me thinking about it all over again.

because it was televised live

I was in high school and heard some kids saying the shuttle blew up during lunch. I thought they were FOS. When the principle got on the PA at the beginning of the next class and said he had a special announcement, I knew they weren't.

We-ll, I remember it for many things and part of it for "Slick Six".

So in relation to this topic, who is
Katherine Eileen Roberts
David Thompson
Jess Sponable
Theresa Tittle
Glenn Yeakel
(and others)?

They were all part of the military astronaut program to fly out of Vandenburg but the Challenger accident finished that for certain. Take a look at those astronaut groups:
http://www.astronautix.com/fam/dod11979.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/fam/dod21982.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/fam/dod31985.htm

A lot of highly trained people who worked their tails off for a program where many of them of the same exit year when it became obvious to them that part of their life's work was not to be.

Of course, things like this happen in space history, as with X-20, as with MOL. Some are fortunate and are able to make, allowed to make the transition so we know their names such as Truly, Crippen, Armstrong.......but not all.

Further, people get bumped from missions for one reason or another. There was, for example, a woman astronaut (Wendy Lawrence, I think, but having trouble finding a source) who had trained for months or years for a Russian space station mission but was pushed aside when technical requirements required that another astronaut take her place.

For something that is highly technical, demanding of hard work, it seems that the odds of "success" can be as fickled as in the acting business.

Quite frankly, I'd say the metal needed to handle the possibility of dying is less than the metal needed to handle the disappointment of being slighted despite one's professional work. It seems like an almost cut throat, if in the hands of the Gods, business.
_____________________________________________________________________
(After Jim Lovell finds out and is FURIOUS that his highly trained CSM pilot is being replaced by a rookie, "Jim, if you hold out for Ken, you will not be on Apollo 13."––NASA Director, (w,stte), "Apollo 13")

I wasn't old enough to remember challenger, but I remember Columbia

I woke up to my dad going "wake up Sev, you need to watch the news"

It felt like it was a bad dream for the rest of the day

They were dead the second the engines lit off. The product of a flawed system, design, and ultimately a bad decision to fly that cold 28 degree morning.

I'm pretty sure it's been confirmed they were alive until the cabin hit the water.

I had a distant family member who was with the National Transportation Safety Board and worked on the investigation.

As I remember listening to him, all but one of the emergency air packs were activated. All survived till impact with the ocean. The crew compartment of the vehicle was intact and not "toasted," as he said.

Also, there were some conversations or comments that were recorded that were recovered and used in the investigation but not released to the public and he would not comment further, except to say that the pilots kept trying everything they could to recover. The problem was and they were unaware that they no longer had a vehicle to fly.

That's a long way to fall to a certain death, a LONG time!

Rest in peace to the crew members and thank you for your service and sacrifice!

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean that literally...

Sounds like what mine did. Not surprising seeing how missions control was right in the backyard.

We lived in Central Florida and could see each shuttle launch.

My wife was a fourth grade teacher.  On that morning it was cold but very clear and she took her class out on the playground to watch the launch.  The whole class watched the shuttle explode.

It was one of the most traumatic events my wife ever experienced.

Funny, I have just been reading Richard Feynman's account of his part in the investigation of the Challenger disaster. Best, Rob

Ladies and gentlemen:

I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.

Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight; we've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.

For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.

We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.

And I want to say something to the school children of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.

I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program, and what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.

I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them: Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.

There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime, the great frontiers were the oceans, and an historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured 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 their journey and waved goodbye, and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."

Ronald Reagan

Major networks had cutaway by the time of the accident, only CNN and NASA/CC were still carrying it live. Very few people had access to either of these channels at that time of day.





 

I was in HS in Tampa at the time

Like every other launch, you could easily see the smoke trail on a clear day

...

8th grade, Mr. Link's social studies class.
 

IIRC, at the beginning of the program, an independent failure analysis audit put all the risks together and predicted that NASA would lose a shuttle in-flight within the first 25 missions.  The Challenger accident occurred on the 26th flight.

Anyone who watched that live will never forget

you have to realize they were "just doing their job".  McAuliffe was "one of us" who got the chance to do something we could only dream of.



 

I was in the base gym at Barksdale AFB.  

Seriously?  I wanted to be an astronaut, but at that time it was a pipe dream for women.  I'd be proud to have anyone in my family choose to be an astronaut.

I think I'd be safe in saying there is nothing routine about sitting on top of that much explosive potential and lighting it off to hurl your vehicle into space.

I think his point is that, currently, the US has no manned spacecraft.

Of course people are still training to become astronauts. In addition to a manned spacecraft in the pipe (although exactly what it's mission is seems to change frequently), we are still flying US astronauts on Soyuz flights. Not exactly the same thing, but you can still get into space if you want to work for it. In a couple of years the US will have a manned spacecraft again, and if the political winds favor it, even a destination beyond orbit. Gingrich's moon base pipe dream aside, I haven't heard any candidate offer a real commitment to manned flight, so who knows.

I was a senior in high school.  A guy came into the locker room after we had worked out and said "the shuttle blew up."

It was a snow day here in middle Tn. I remember just like it was yesterday. I was 13.

JCS

I was about 5 miles away, at chickasaw middle school.

We were all standing out back watching, my science teacher had been friends in college with christa mccaulife(sp).
She was standing there dumbfounded to say the least.

Sad day in our history.

I was a Sr in high school taking mid terms when that happened. The principal made an announcement over the intercom system.
Went home and was glued to the TV that night.

I watched the launch from my NE FL high school, we could see the explosion.




A few days after my english teacher had us write an essay about how we felt about the "tragedy". I got a good talking to about sensitivity because I didn't consider it a tragedy. While terrible, that crew died following their dream...what I thought was a tragedy was something like this incident, which occured not too long before Challenger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Air_Flight_1285



Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

I was at work that day and a co-worker came in and told me about it.  Sad day indeed.  
 

I was living in Palm Bay Fla at the time.
I saw it first hand, me and couple of friends had left school to pick up some parts for shop class, we had to run by one guys house and when we pulled up his mom came out and said the shuttle was about to launch so we started watching and couldn't believe what had happened next....

Grew up I Merritt island FL. Went outside during gym glass to watch the shuttle, never will forget that day.

Not rare at all

9 launches in '85 and Challenger was the 2nd launch of 1986

 

"Alot more rare and dramatic".... than say, a Helicopter take off. (?)   How many helicopter launches weret here in 1985-1986?

They wouldn't be throttling up at max Q. They would be throttling down to limit airframe stresses.

Ok, maybe "rare and mysterious" was over dramatic.

But at the time, and at that age, I recall the shuttle launches still having an aura of "coolness" or "neatness" about them. They had only been happening since '81 ('82 in earnest) at the time so to a youngster it seemed very new.

Then again that was 25+ years ago and I was in jr. high at the time so maybe my memory is just plain skewed.  

Campus has grown much since then.

President Reagan's Challenger Disaster Speech - 1/28/86

I show my students that video every quarter. You'd be amazed at the looks on their faces - 95% of them have never seen it before (at this stage, it was 8 years before they were born).

I was AD Air Force, and in the middle of a PCS move.  The movers were at our place that morning, packing our household goods.  We had a small TV that we weren't go to take to Germany, turned it on at lunchtime and Challenger had just blown up.

Sad day.

My response was to "rare and mysterious"

As someone who could see the launch from my yard, I can tell you without a doubt that it had reached the "oh, another one" level.