We will never forget them...

[RaceGrrl]

January 28, 1986

"We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God."

... President Ronald Reagan

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_xpCs3FgK308/SYDMF8MIPnI/AAAAAAAABbU/eUczHpDWmaw/s320/STS-51-L+crew+space+shuttle+challenger+disaster.jpg

Hard to believe it's been 25 years. :(

[racer2c]

:( watched live, in horror, during science class in high school. Very sad.

[nrc]

We were living in Orlando at the time. Normally we would go outside to watch the launches but I was at work and lost track of time. I headed outside hoping they had a delay or something. In 1986 it wasn't like you could just check online and find out.

I still remember heading out the door and seeing coworkers trickling back inside with looks of horror on their faces. And then outside seeing the contrails of the boosters and other debris all over sky. :(

[cameraman]

I was writing an instruction manual for a blood pressure cuff, messing about with the formatting to get it on one sheet of paper. I remember seeing the sudden appearance of the smoke in the middle of the srb and was wondering what that was when...

[dando]

To this day when I hear "...go with throttle up" I cringe. :( I was a soph @ The OSU @ the time, saw it live on TV and grieved watching the news updates throughout the day. PBS did a space travel special that evening that I recorded and kept for years. I must have replayed the launch sequence a 100 times looking for what went wrong. One day after the 44th anniversary of Apollo 1.

gEjXjfxoNXM

-Kevin

[Anteater]

It was time for my morning break, so I stepped out of the office and headed to the doughnut shop a couple of doors down. The young guy at the counter stated very matter-of-factly, "The space shuttle blew up." I thought he was joking at first... :(

Here's the source of the quote that Reagan used--quite a story there:
http://www.skygod.com/quotes/highflight.html

[chop456]

'Hail Columbia' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084043/) has been playing on the documentary channel recently. Worth a watch.