Where were you on January 28, 1986? Fewer and fewer remember, but never let us forget. Yesterday marked the 28th anniversary of an explosion that sucked away the breath of the world—the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster that occurred over the brilliant blue skies off the coast of Central Florida. Around the world, people tuned in to watch Challenger’s mission. Millions of Americans viewed the historic launch from the comforts of home on television. Millions more listened to the live radio broadcast. Schoolchildren across the nation watched from their classrooms. Tens of thousands more watched from the Florida coastline as, high above Kennedy Space Center, sunshine gleamed off the sparkling white shuttle.
And then Challenger burst into a ball of flame and white smoke.
Challenger was historic for reasons beyond the fact that it was the first—and hopefully the only—human-carrying shuttle to suffer a fatal in-air accident. Challenger also carried the first African-American into space, the first American woman into space, and the first Canadian into space. She also accomplished the first night launch and night landing in the history of any space shuttle. And at 11:39 am EST, Space Shuttle Challenger and her crew of six men and one woman disappeared from our skies forever. The crew, who came to be known around the world as “The Challenger Seven,” included Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe.
President Ronald Regan addressed our stunned and heartbroken nation that night, sending his deepest sympathies to the families of the seven astronauts and apologizing to schoolchildren for the “painful things” they’d seen that day. Then President Regan presented his own challenge to each American man, woman and child, saying: “The crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.”
Do you remember where you were that day? Share with us your memories in the comment section below. Never let us never forget.
Our two children where home that day from school. It must have been a snow day. They were downstairs in the playroom watching the launch, I was upstairs in the kitchen. They both started screaming for me to come downstairs. None of us could believe it.
I was in Kaneohe Hawaii, watching Good Morning America with my cup of Kona Java and smoking my morning cigarette. Yelling at my three children to hurry and come watch the lift off! I always watched lift off’s and was transfixed to the television. As I watched the Challenger lift off into the heavens, my heart skipped a beat at that moment of sheer horror when I realized the aircraft was coming apart. I sat paralyzed and felt total powerless.
My youth was spent on flight lines and growing up around the “shit hot fighter pilots” and knowing they live on the edge and thrive when the push their envelope. My father was a test pilot and was a member of the famed River Rats and flew over 292 missions over North Vietnam in the F-105 . His last tour in Southeast Asia was in a “Wild Weasel” squadron , who were basically sent out on suicide missions.
The flashback of the Challenger Disaster, had great impact on me and the fears it raised in me. Still anytime any aircraft “goes in” my alarm bells and fear always paralyze me.
Pat Conway wrote in the Great Santini ” Man on earth has a shotglass of time allotted to him, but the pilot approaching the speed of sound is a conqueror of time measured and time lost”
I remember the famous poem written by John Magee.
High Flight
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunwards I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a thousand things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air,
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of god.
So for me, the Challenger crew had a divine moment and touched the face of God!
Finally, I will share a printable song sung at beer call after surviving another mission on Thud Ridge : this from the 469th Tactical Fighter Squadron Song book in 1965-66.
“Fighter Pilots”
Here’s a toast to the host of the those who boast the vastness of the sky
To a friend we send a message of his brother men who fly
We drink to those who gave their all of old
As down we roar to score the rainbow’s pot of gold
Here’s a toast to the host of those who boast the U.S. Air Force
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder
Climbing high into the sun
Here they come zooming to meet our thunder
at ’em boys, give her the gun
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under
Off with one hell of a roar
We live in fame or do down in flame
Nothing can stop the U.S. Air Force
That my friend, is one of the many pieces of the mosaic of my life and why I take the Challenger disaster so personally, and I will never forget!
As strange as it may seem and why it had an unusual impact on me, I left Morgantown, WV driving to Charleston, WV cassette deck playing, never listened to the radio. When I got to Charleston, my client was despondent. I asked what is wrong and he looked at me with great distain and said you don’t know? I said no I had been in the car for the last hour and a half. Then he told me what had happened.
Superb blog. I was in my car, going home for lunch, driving on Roberts Drive in Atlanta (Dunwoody). The horror of that day is just a memory away.