Challenger

[mekender]

Jay made a post on the breakup of the space shuttle that reminded me about it.

so here is my bit on the whole thing, keep in mind that i grew up less than a hour from Cape Canaveral and have seen probably over 90% of the shuttle launches with my own eyes, several of them where i was on the space center property including the first night launch in 1983 which was also the Challenger.

Anyways, here is what I remember:

http://guywithguns.blogspot.com/2009/01/challenger.html

[Darrell]

I remember when the Challenger accident happened, I was off work that day and had the launch on TV. The shuttle launches had become so routine, though, I wasn't paying much attention, and left to go out for a late breakfast right before the launch. Things seemed normal when I got to the diner, but a low buzz started soon after, and word of the accident spread amongst the customers. I quickly left and went back home, and was transfixed and horrified by what I saw on the tube...

Not to get too personal, but my twin brother's Pave Low had crashed almost exactly a year earlier, also taking seven lives. I was shattered all over again by the Challenger accident.

When the Columbia accident happened, the neighbor and I were out in the front yard, watching the skies to the south before sunrise. Columbia should have been visible low in the south, but clouds over the horizon blocked our view. Considering what happened, I'm rather glad I didn't see it.

[randy]

I was in Korea, happened to be off that day. So sick my supervisor told me to go home and come back in 3 days. (During a quarterly "C" exercise, I had to point at a checklist and have one of my JR NCOs call out the item).

Waking up that evening (Korea time) and watching it on AFKN was just the perfect frakin' end to a wonderful day.

Kevin at Smallest Minority has a good write up.