I was in my last semester of college and had come back from classes. Turned on the tv and was having lunch watching the liftoff when it happened. For those that have never seen it, the Netflix four part documentary "Challenger" is excellent and really shows how this was a disaster just waiting to happen.

I was T-7 months.

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
I was T-7 months.

And I was T+26 days.

Forty years ago this morning, I was in a La Quinta Inn in Houston, Texas, getting ready for a job interview. I had just showered and was shaving.

The TV in the room was made special for hotels/motels, I guess, because it had an AM/FM radio built into it. I was listening to the radio and the announcer said the shuttle had just exploded. I walked into the room and turned on the TV, and I saw the Y-shaped white contrail in the sky. I stood there with shaving cream on my face and watched the report.

Something about it has always held my fascination.

Challenger and Chernobyl. Have read & watched copious amounts on both.

I was an electrical engineer in my first career, with shuttle as my main project. We built the computers, and I was responsible for the digital logic. We were working on designing upgraded computers at that time, while supporting the deployed hardware.

On that morning, three of us were in a meeting with NASA about the upgrade. One of the attendees went out to retrieve something from his office when his wife happened to call him with the news. The meeting ended, and the program stalled for about a year.

I don't have anything good to say about how NASA interjected themselves into the upgraded system after that. Prior to the Challenger accident, it had become quite political wrt publicity. Nobody wanted to be blamed for a scrubbed launch or a glitch during the flight. Exactly what set the stage for the accident. But after that day, they micromanaged so badly that the safety and reliability were worse, while the costs skyrocketed. They really didn't learn from the accident.

I kept a file of cya documents for decades documenting the decisions from above.

I just rolled into work at 8am and my co-worker, a really nice guy a couple years older than me, was crying softly and told me the space shuttle just exploded after liftoff. I'll never forget that. He was not the sort of guy you would expect to see crying.

I wasn't born yet by about 5 months. However since they were relatively local, Christa McAuliffe's mother did come and speak to my entire school when I was in middle school. It was very poignant.

Fly-Sig, as an expert in the field, have you seen the Challenger four part documentary, and if so, what did you think of it?

I was a government contractor working at the NASA White Sands Test Facility watching the liftoff when the incident occurred. We had just finished testing components that were on that flight. Needless to say we were all in a state of shock. Lots of hard work determining what went wrong. Lots of hard work to start the program up again.
BTW the shuttle didn’t explode. It lost aerodynamic stability and broke apart.

I was a senior in high school. The principal got on the PA and was sobbing for a few minutes before she said the Challenger blew up. Doing the minutes when we just heard her sobbing with no other information I was wondering if a nuclear strike was inbound and we were all about to die. So when she finally told us about the shuttle as she continued to cry, it didn't seem like a big deal after our imaginations had run wild. Her overwrought actions downgraded the actual significance of the tragedy.

I was in 4th grade, we had a tv rolled in and the 5th grade and 3rd grades classes were all packed in. We had just done a day or two of science classes as like a warm up for the launch. Everyone was so excited, it was horrifying. We all just stared in shock, the little kids started crying and then it was just a shit show. I had a really kind teacher Mr. Painter, he took to calming everyone down. At first there was some king of talk that they could survive and it was a rescue mission, then

I think later that night Regan said they had died in a special report. So sad.

In high school watching the launch in class, terrible

I was in 8th grade watching in class. it got very quiet in the room. seems like yesterday

Just enlisted in the Navy. Top floor of our barracks had a big room with a TV. We all ended up there watching in shock. Rest of the day just pretty much got cancelled.

Jr. High 9th grade watching in class. Remeber it clearly,

I was in the common area in Washington Hall dorm at Ohio University watching it on the TV.

In a database design course in college, don't recall what prompted professor to turn on. Was probably after event.

quote:

Originally posted by BMR:
Fly-Sig, as an expert in the field, have you seen the Challenger four part documentary, and if so, what did you think of it?

No, I haven't seen it.

Wow, I just realized I have had my own "Mandela effect" surrounding this event for the past 40 years. In my memory when this happened, I was in 5th grade watching, with the whole class, on the TV strapped to the rolling cart. I vividly remember this image:


Today as I was thinking about it something was "off." I was actually in the 9th grade when this occurred. Funny how memory works (or fails to without notice)...

edited to add: Apologies for the large image, can't realize easily on my phone.