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Thirty years ago...

I was twelve days old when the Challenger fell, but learning about the disaster as a young child had a profound impact on this budding space nerd. It strongly hammered home the point that the "final frontier" is really, really hard to get exactly right - and anything less than exactly right often goes horribly wrong.

The sacrifices made by bold pioneers are never in vain; we learn from each failure and are able to increase our future opportunities for success. It's a true testament to human nature. We don't stop trying just because it's hard or dangerous - that just gives us all the more motivation to get it right.

I've said it before: this is a truly exciting time to be interested in space. We're learning so much about the universe around us, and continually advancing our capability to explore that fascinating universe. And we owe so much of that to the brave souls who have gone before us.

To the seven who gave their lives that day – CDR Francis R. Scobee, pilot Michael J. Smith, mission specialists Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, and Ronald E. McNair, and payload specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and S. Christa McAuliffe – you are not forgotten.



That last bit yanked from a G+ post which also shared this image:
STS-51-L.jpg

Photo: STS-51L as it cleared the tower, approximately T+2.7 seconds, 16:38:02 UTC, January 28th, 1986, seventy seconds before it began to disintegrate. The fatal failure of the O-ring on the right booster had already happened. Image KSC-86PC-0081, from NASA.
 
Truly shocking, and also heart-rending seeing the reactions on the faces of those family members watching, goodness me, what they must have been going through..
The sad thing about this is that it could have all been avoided, had management listened to the engineers, who knew about the problem with the O-rings.

I remember watching the launch on TV. There are some incidents which remain burned into your memory, and shock you to the very core. The other shocking one being 9/11.
 
I was making a delivery for work when I heard about it on the radio. :( I remember the exact location as vividly as if it just happened, and every time I pass that intersection, I think fondly of our brave explorers and their contributions. No need to wish them a trip to heaven. They were already there.
 
I was building kitchen cabinets in a log cabin... seriously. A very large estate was having a modern day log cabin built on the property for a residence for the grounds keeper. I, too, remember exactly where I was standing when I heard the news via local radio. I felt great sorrow for the brave explorers and their families as well as a fear of how the tragedy might effect our future space endeavors.
 
I can remember seeing it happen on TV, I don't recall where I was......
an accident with an 18 wheeler running over my motorcycle Jan '08 ended a lot of memories....
and killed my short term memory......

but, I can remember some things, and that is one I can see in my mind's eye....
like the one that came apart over Texas and scattered parts of it from New Mexico to Louisiana....

The Twin Towers going down.... that event, I can recall the entire day..... I was working in Tempe, AZ in fire station #271 fixing the laptop dispatch rig on a fire truck......

I walked back into the lobby to get a drink of cold water, and the TV was blaring and the Talking Heads were yelling The Twin Towers are falling down????

that ended work for that day..... I sat down on the couch dumb founded wondering what in the hell????
 
Picking up a cat from the vet. Daughter heard the announcement and went crazy. She loved the shuttles - 3rd grade at the time.

In fact, she did all kinds of small odd jobs for extra and donated $10.00 for the Endeavor.
 
I was 14. I always stayed home from school on launch days. (I also watched the Enterprise launch off the back of the 747) I watched it live as it happened. I cried. Oddly I was also home and also watching live when the twin towers fell. I was holding my 3 month old son feeding him when that happened. I cried.
 
I was a senior in high school in Physics class. They announced it on the intercom and we all just looked at each other not knowing the profound impact it would have on the country and world.

I went home turned on the TV and watched the news pretty much all night. We then talked and discussed the impact in Humanities class, since there was a teacher on board. My teacher liked the picture of all 7 astronauts and felt all 7 should be remembered that way.

I watched all the launches of the space shuttle since 1981 when it first launched.
 
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