Twenty years ago this Saturday....

[kingnorris]

...Jan 28th,the space shuttle Challenger exploded after takeoff. I remember it well,I was just getting started in my 11th grade vocational auto body class,when our teacher came in and broke the news.We then watched in horror and sadness on a portable tv as they replayed the tragedy. So, where were you guys when this catastrophe happened?

[newguy]

dang..20 years...well I would have been 10 years old..think I was in the fourth grade. I remember it happening..

....It's a good thing NASA has learned it's lesson.

[Piper_Pilot]

I was one year old when this happened, so I don't remember much about it.

[salmendra]

Twenty year ago I was already 14, and I remember I was studying or playing in my friend Marcus´ house. Since then we lost contact but I remember there was a TV turned on when the news interrupted th eprogramming. I remember the feeling of "this is is a mistake, this can´t really be happening", but the images made clear enough it did happened.

It is strange how traumatic events go into you memory. I can tell exactly where I was when heard John Lennon was shot and more recently, when I heard the news from 9/11. I wasn´t born whne Kennedy was shot, but my parents can say exactly where they were and what they were doing.

A sad day indeed. Worse it happened again a few years ago. Let´s pra it doesn´t happen too often.

Best Regards

Sergio Almendra
Campinas - Brazil

[flyboy208]

I was 14 years old and lived in Florida at the time. Back in those days the FAA alowed you to get fairly close to Cape Canaveral to observe Shuttle launches. My Dad and I usually watched from about 50 miles away at around 8000 feet in his Aztec, but not on that day. Would have been really weird to see that happen in real time. A tragedy indeed.

[Andrew_L]

I remember it well. I was sitting on a train from Albertville, France to Geneva Switzerland. I was in Europe on a ski holiday. The person beside me was reading the newspapers and they had the picture on the front page. Something i'll never forget

[andyjohnston]

I was in grade 5, I don't remember if I heard about it that day, or the next at school, I know I wasn't watching it on tv at the time.

But it's true you remember these things. On Septmber 11, 2001 I didn't have to go in to school until about 3:00 in the afternoon, so I got up late, did some fooling around upstairs, finally lunch time rolled around and I decided to go get some food. Someone was watching tv as I was doing so, and at first I didn't pay attention, then bit-by-bit the words started to filter through.

What's truly amazing is that there was a web site that had footage of the shows different networks were showing that mroning, and I remember watching them and Good Morning America said something about there was a fire at the WTC and it was being looked into.

Another clip from the same site came from the CBC here in Canada. They were showing a live feed of the WTC with smoke coming out and the announcer saying how terrible it all was. Then you could here everyone in the studio going "OOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!" as the first tower collapsed. At first he just kept talking not realizing what was happening.

I guess it's about every ten or so years that something like that happens, let's hope the next won't be anytime soon.

[N700MS]

I was 6 months old so yeah I don't remember it but it is a very sad thing to watch.

[FlyingKiwi]

I hadn't been born then, but I can remember a feeling of surreality when I heard that the Columbia had crashed, so I can sort of imagine what it must have been like, although perhaps even more shocking given it was the first time that a shuttle had had a major accident.

[N069NT]

I will never forget it. I was a senior in high school and our physics class was privileged enough to watch it live via CNN in the library with our physics teacher. It was a big deal there because the mission controller, Richard "D!ck" (forum word bans I guess... LOL) Covey, was from our hometown and graduated from our high school. He was slated to be the mission commander of the next mission, and to say that the local media was focused on him as much as Christa McCauliff would be an understatement. He can be seen in footage of mission control and the reaction to the disaster in Houston.

Anyway, after it happened, our teacher ran out crying and we young kids just sat there in complete disbelief in what we were seeing before us and the aftermath.

A few months later I started flying lessons out of our local AFB aero club (Eglin AFB in Fort Walton Beach, FL). When I soloed in a sweet "new to me" 1985 C172P, they were in my thoughts. There is no feeling in the world like your first solo and looking over after liftoff to that empty right seat and realizing that nobody is there to get you out of trouble but yourself! :o

Anyway, that day still sits with me, and the only time those feelings came even close again was the Columbia disaster in March '03, although I didn't realize that disaster until I turned on CNN and saw the live shots of what I at first thought was a satellite breakup.

Ned