24 years ago...

[johno]

I was walking down a hallway at NORAD, when the boards lit up. Without the *exercise* light on.

I raced to the nearest office, to find everyone clustered around the TV watching as CNN ran the explosion over and over and over...

Comments

[debmats.livejournal.com]

I was mopping the kitchen floor, with the tv on so I could watch the lift off...

[scendan.livejournal.com]

Oh my god...has it been 24 years?

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

I was at work in San Francisco, and our delivery guy came running in yelling that the shuttle had exploded, and we all figured he was just making shit up. Then we heard the newspaper vendors as the 'extras' came out.

[kshandra]

I was walking to homeroom and overheard two upperclassmen in the hallway. I remember thinking it was both way too early for April Fools and a really sick choice - and then the TV was on in homeroom....

I was at a parochial school; religion was my next class. One of the other girls wound up getting permission from the teacher so she could run to the bathroom and get me tissues.

edited for more appropriate icon

[knaveofhearts.livejournal.com]

Ninth grade, arts class, so we didn't watch it on television. Been a long time.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Those were my video clip days, so I was surrounded by it over and over again for weeks. No wonder I have Space Shuttle PTSD.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I was a pimply faced teenager at the orthodontist, both of us listening to the AM radio narration of the launch.

His hand slipped when we heard the worst. Neither of us cared.

Half an hour later, no one believed me at school either.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

I was in the ladies' room when one of my colleagues came in and called over the partition "the shuttle just blew up!" Figuring it was a quaint turn of phrase, I said "Of course, it was supposed to launch this morning." "No, I mean BLEW UP!" "WHAAT!?"

The lunchroom where the tv lived was packed much of the day.

[redrob.livejournal.com]

I slept in that morning - I heard the news in the dining hall @ lunch. I couldn't believe it at first. Once it sunk in, I left, and found a TV running with coverage in the admin building. I just stood there and stared at it; I don't know how long. I don't remember anyone else being around - I'm sure there must have been, but it's all a blank to me, except for the TV showing the explosion over and over.

For my sister's generation, the defining moment was when JFK was shot. For us, it was the Challenger. I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't remember with crystal clarity where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

Like many of you, my own loss is merely (merely?) that of innocence - of hope. I had no personal connection to any of astronauts, just a shared dream of Something Better Out There. However, I've met and spoken with others who where more closely affected. Barbara Morgan of McCall, ID was the runner up for the 'Teacher in Space' to Christa McAliffe, and had met and trained with the crew as her backup. She did a speaking tour for NASA for several months afterwards, but then returned home, and rarely spoke of it again. For a woman I met some years later, her father was an engineer for the shuttle program who had worked on the Challenger. He still felt guilt (entirely undeserved, but still there) for the explosion.

Still here? June Scobee Rodgers and other family members, as a memorial, formed the Challenger Center as an ongoing educational program. Take a look at what they offer, and, if you like, throw some money their way.

Alex

[sibylle]

I was visiting my family in the country and with time difference and them being farmers and all, no one watched it live - I don't know if it was on the news that night (I was 7 at the time, so either not allowed to watch the news yet, or not watching anyway), but I remember reading the following headline on the rather sensationalist newspaper my uncle prefers: "'Ah oh uh' - they knew they were dying" along with a photo of the exploding shuttle. This is the first newspaper headline I remember reading.

[supersniffles.livejournal.com]

I had just walked in the door from work (I worked early mornings) and my room-mates had been watching the launch and told me.
And during the freaking out about it I had the selfish thought, 'Crap! Did this have to happen on my sister's birthday?"

[it-aint-easy.livejournal.com]

On my way to work that day, I heard on the radio that they'd be launching. I hadn't watched a launch in a long time, so I searched the TV channels at work, but nobody was carrying the launch. An hour or so later, I came out of my lab, and everybody was clustered around the TV.

[victorthecook.livejournal.com]

I was in a driving simulator, in high school. We got an announcement over the PA.

[lilyofthewest.livejournal.com]

I'm young; this is one of my earliest memories.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I was at work. We all just looked at each other for about a half-hour.

I suppose it's good that I didn't think of it till I saw your post.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

I was at work listening to KQED radio & not really paying attention to anybody else as I had a busy day going. They didn't report on it until about noon west coast time - just as I was breaking for lunch.

[callibr8]

I was walking across the parking lot at 8:35am Pacific Time when I felt a shiver and didn't know why. Moments later, as I reached my desk at the high-tech company where I worked as a firmware engineer, one of my co-workers - the one with the degree in physics - told me that Challenger had just blown up. Several of us engineers, all in varying degrees of shock, managed to scrounge up one of two TVs in the whole facility to watch the replay coverage. At that time the previously mentioned co-worker posited a problem with the seals on the booster rockets, given the unusually cold temperatures at the launch site that day. Yes, the very same seals that Richard Feynman demonstrated the failure mode of, using a glass of ice water, in the congressional hearings, months later.

[howeird]

Walked into work, met at the door by the QA guy who said, with a smile (WTF?) the shuttle had exploded. He had set up a small TV in the lab for us to watch. My sister was devastated - she lived in the town Christa taught in.

[wldrose.livejournal.com]

I had a migrain at work and went to my mothers house that was closer than mine a hour. I turned the tv on low and crawled in to her bed so I could sleep it off I was dreaming and when I woke up I thought I was still asleep.

ash

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I saw it on a TV at a restaurant on my way to work. Watched it and re-watched it then walked to work and told them I was going back home.

I was living in Chicago at the time and it occured within a week of the Bears' Super Bowl victory. Very surreal.

[karisu-sama.livejournal.com]

I had just gotten to work (at a small start-up company in Mass.), and found out from my co-workers.

Didn't get much work done that day... :/

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

I was watching. So were my small children. Explaining it to them was incredibly difficult.

[oddharmonic.livejournal.com]

My parents used let me stay home from school on shuttle launch days because the only TV in my school was a small one with poor reception.

I'd had a screaming nightmare the night before about the WCVB logo interrupting the shuttle launch, so my parents were less surprised than I would have expected.

I don't remember staying home on shuttle launch days after that.

[elizabear.livejournal.com]

I was working on the switchboard at Marriott. I was on a call when someone came in to the office and told us. I said "WHAT?!", and the woman on the phone asked me what was going on. I told her, and we were both in shock.

I also remember that it took less than 24 hours for the jokes to start. It struck me at the time that we humans have some strange coping mechanisms.

[edgreen86.livejournal.com]

I was sitting in the Operations office of a mech infantry unit where I was the only Intel guy working.

We spent a good part of the morning watching the TV and wondering what the hell had happen.

Crazy/sad day.