January 28th, 1986. 25 years has gone by since the explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger. Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? Perhaps like myself, you were watching it live. What are your memories of that day?
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2011/remembering.challenger/?hpt=C2
It was my first day of college at Grossmont College.
I had a political science teacher with the last name of Herzig and he was a dick. And I remember that day because the shuttle
blow-up and my teacher was a dick.
I was one of the few that avidly followed the shuttle program in those days. I grew up during the Apollo program; when I was in elementary school the teachers would make time in class so we could watch the Saturn V's launch and spalsh down, not to mention all the cool interactive video from the astronauts on the moon. It was only natural that I would end up working in the aerospace industry. :)
Convair built the cargo bays for all the shuttles at Plant 19 in Old Town (the same plant where June Reading worked during WWII), and we made tons of spares in our machine shop back in those days. Shortly after I hired on I requested a transfer to the space shuttle program, but because I was low on the seniority list my request was denied. I remember being increasingly frustrated in the mid 80's because I couldn't find any news coverage of any shuttle launches. There wasn't a world wide web back in those days, so you had to get your information the old fashioned way -- through the tube. :) The American people had become bored with our manned space program, and I thought that was really sad. Krista Mcauliffe's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_McAuliffe) selection as the first teacher is space was really exciting, but the media treated it like an everyday occurrance. I also remember being completely blown away by a couple of components that were shipped down from Plant 19 to our paint shop about six months before Challenger -- they were the Centaur attachment rings for the only two Shuttle Centaurs ever launched; one for Ulysses and the other for Galileo.
Anyway, I was working at Convair the morning Challenger exploded. We were building KC-10 fuselages for McDonnell Douglas back in those days, and I worked final assembly on the F/G section (the last 60 feet of the fuselage section), and I remember how quiet the plant became as news of the Challenger spread. Our assembly building was about a quarter of a mile long, with 50 foot ceilings, with a constant noise of at least 130 dB from all the rivet guns, and it just got quiet, which was very eerie. We couldn't get any good information, except through radios that people smuggled in their tool boxes, but it was the topic of conversation throughout the day. I remember turning on the news when I got home from work, showing the endless replays of the lift-off and the explosion, holding my one year old daughter as she napped and being unable to take my eyes off the TV. Six months after the Challenger disaster, Convair laid off several hundred workers, including me. Fortunately I wasn't out of work long enough to cash an unemployment check -- I got a job working on the AH-64 Apache program at Teledyne Ryan.
The 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster is made even more depressing when you realize that we have no replacement spacecraft currently in production. Not only do we have nothing to replace the shuttles, we have no manned space flight capability, period. Nada. Zip. Nothing. The US government has taken us out of the manned exploration of space by cancelling the Ares program, which makes today's anniversary twice as sad.
KC-10 Tanker
(http://www.pacificparanormal.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3288.0;attach=1768)
I was in my 6th grade classroom. I remember I was on the ground doing an art project, with two other kids, and drawing on a big piece of butcher paper. I was completely unaware there was even a shuttle launch scheduled that day. I remember I had just gotten in trouble for making some joke about Dolly Parton's boobs. I remember my teacher telling me that some people are short and some people are tall and that just because our bodies are different isn't a good reason to make fun of people. I think he was getting ready to make me write an apology letter to Dolly Parton when a couple kids came running into our room from the classroom next to us. They were crying. They had been watching the shuttle launch live.
I just remember I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I was sad all day. Ever since I saw the movie "The Right Stuff" as a kid I had a love affair with the space program. I remember just looking at the television images and newspaper photos over and over again. It was just like 9/11. It just seemed like throughout the entire day there was an eerie quiet. Like, collectively, everyone just spoke more quietly. Or maybe it was like shell shock.
After reading your post, Jason all I could think was "Oh my God, I'm so freaking old." ;D
Ironically, three catastrophic events in our country's manned space program happened at this time of year. As we pause to remember the crew of space shuttle Challenger, please take a moment tonight and raise your glass in honor of these brave men and women from NASA:
(http://www.pacificparanormal.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3288.0;attach=1770)
Apollo 1
On January 27, 1967 astronauts (from L to R) Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were killed by a flash fire in the capsule of a Saturn V during a flight test.
(http://www.pacificparanormal.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3288.0;attach=1772)
STS-51 Space Shuttle Challenger
On January 28, 1986 (front row) Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair; (back row) Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik were killed when a solid rocket booster O ring failed during lift off, resulting in a catastrophic explosion of the shuttle's external fuel tank.
(http://www.pacificparanormal.com/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3288.0;attach=1774)
STS-107 Space Shuttle Columbia
On February 1, 2003 (from L to R) David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCoo and Ilan Ramon were killed when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry.
Wow, Brian. You are right. I didn't realize the dates and how close together they were. That's beyond ironic.
I remember that day very well. I was 21 years old. I had driven my brother and I up to Norco to go visit my father and stepmom who were down here visiting from Northern California. We had the television on to watch the launch and were all out in the backyard, taking photos and just waiting. My brother grabbed my camera and said, "hey Dad, you and Trace say cheese". So he took a photo of my father and I. Not ten seconds later, my step brother Rick yelled that they had just launched. We ran inside just in time to see Challenger explode. It was as if time stood still. We just all froze. We couldn't believe what we were seeing.
That photo I have of my father and I is only one of maybe three I still have. I love that photo but everytime I look at it, it reminds me of what was to come not 15 seconds later.
I was on my way to a class at Irvine Valley College when I heard about it on the radio. It's still hard to believe.