Space Shuttle Challenger

[AzScorpion]

It's hard to believe it was 40 years ago today that the Challenger went down. I remember hearing the news on the radio while we were working on a condo and had to wait to get home to see the news because there wee no smartphones back then. Christa McAuliffe was born in Boston and was a teacher in Concord, NH so it was all over our local news . May we remember and honer their memory and they all rest in peace.

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[LaBalbe]

I was home sick that day, so was watching it almost non-stop on the news.

 

[21rangerCactus]

I was in the..... 2nd grade.

 

[Rinn69]

My senior year. I was in the library and there were a few of us watching it. About 20 min after it happened, the entire school was dismissed for the day.

 

[WhyNot21]

I was just coming out of my Bears' Super Bowl Win hangover from 2 days earlier. I thought I was having a bad dream.

 

[underwhelmed]

I was in my USAF ROTC class my senior year at FSU when the ARMY ROTC 1st Sgt came in and asked if any of us wanted to be astronauts cause they just got a few openings…we turned on the TV and saw the reporting.

 

[got3fords]

I remember it well. I was in shop class working on my old Honda motorcycle.

 

[TJC]

I had a buddy who was in a relatively high level in NASA in Florida at the time of the Challenger misshap. A few months after the salvage operation he told me that those in the top cockpit area (all but three IIRC correctly) survived the initial blast. Two discoveries from the salvage operation proved it.

1 - Supplemental air had been manually turned on by at least 3 of the crew members, based upon their recovered air packs (each occupant had access to their personal air packs).

2 - The crew had been following the emergency protocal checklist on the way down. Switch and Button configurations on the console told the story.

The cockpit part of the challenger also hit the water upside down as the "turtle heat shield" that protected the front lower part of the cockpit area had seperated from the cockpit section of the fuselage upon impact. They also found salt water in the lungs of several crew members. He told me these and other details were not released to the public.

Bottomine: Some of those crew members survived the trip down and died upon impact.

Without going into the details here, he told me senior NASA design engineers repeatedly warned NASA management that it was too cold to fly, but were ignored.

RIP Challenger Crew.

 

[TxOTRRanger]

I was to young to see it happen. However as an adult I can tell you that I have watched every documentary on this event.
RIP Challenger crew.

 

[Radioman]

Very sad day...

 

[Friday yet?]

40 years. That part is kind of scary to think about. 40? Really? Surely not. Not this quickly.

I was a young guy, not even a year out of the Army. Was in my first (of many to come) corporate sales school. Saw the news while on our lunch break.

Can still remember my frustration that we had our afternoon training as scheduled. Doing so just seemed so disrespectful to to the astronauts. To America in general. Just MHO. Very sad day.

 

[got3fords]

40 years. That part is kind of scary to think about. 40? Really? Surely not. Not this quickly.

I was a young guy, not even a year out of the Army. Was in my first (of many to come) corporate sales school. Saw the news while on our lunch break.

Can still remember my frustration that we had our afternoon training as scheduled. Doing so just seemed so disrespectful to to the astronauts. To America in general. Just MHO. Very sad day.

Yes, it was a kick to the stomach. But no match, and greatly surpassed by the gut punch felt on 9/11/01. The latter a deliberate attack.

 

[TxOTRRanger]

Yes, it was a kick to the stomach. But no match, and greatly surpassed by the gut punch felt on 9/11/01. The latter a deliberate attack.

Yeah, the attack on the twin towers in NY on 9/11/01, that I witnessed on TV in my high school History class. I was a Junior in high school when that event happened.

 

[got3fords]

Yeah, the attack on the twin towers in NY on 9/11/01, that I witnessed on TV in my high school History class. I was a Junior in high school when that event happened.

I think we all remember exactly where we were. I sure do.

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