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The Challenger Explosion: Remembering Christa McAuliffe And The Space Shuttle Challenger
The Challenger exploded 25 years ago.
When I was in first grade, my wonderful teacher lived and breathed space. He had us build model rockets, do our math problems about space shuttles and read everything we could about NASA. He was a total space junkie.
One day, he came in to school and ate a candy bar in front of the whole class. He’d gone to Washington, he told us, to be one of ten finalists to become the first teacher in space. They’d given the job to another wonderful teacher, Christa McAuliffe. The Butterfinger he was eating was his consolation prize. He teared up as he explained how dear that dream had been to him.
A year later, our whole school gathered in the assembly hall to watch the Challenger take off. My teacher was there to guide the school as we watched the launch unfold, knowing it could have been him on that shuttle.
The explosion that followed knocked our school hard, just like it did the whole country. I’ve always felt some particular poignancy about the disaster, knowing how much I loved my space-crazy teacher and imagining a little of what Christa McAuliffe’s students must have felt that day.
The Challenger explosion was the iconic tragedy of my childhood, just as JFK’s assassination was for my mother. It’s the moment seared into my mind when I had to confront the reality of death and sudden tragedy on a national scale, sharing grief with everyone I knew, young and old.
I didn’t know Christa McAuliffe or any of the astronauts who died that day. After elementary school I lost all interest in the space program. Yet the tragedy of the Challenger still tugs at my heart 25 years later. I’m not alone. I’ve seen several friends blog about it today, sharing their own memories of this day in history.
Do you remember where you were when the Challenger exploded? What role did the space shuttle tragedy have in your life?
Photo: wikimedia
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6 Comments
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San Francisco Yoga News Post_tag commented on Mar 09 12 at 5:59 pmAnkush commented on Jan 28 11 at 12:59 pmDo you remember where you were when the Challenger exploded? Get Info about Challenger Disaster at:
http://worldnews108.blogspot.com/2011/01/challenger-disaster-live-on.html
PlumbLucky commented on Jan 28 11 at 2:18 pmThat’d make you my age, as I was in second grade too. Sitting in the library with everyone in my (small school) watching on a TV set with bunny ears on an A/V cart. Crying as Sr. Anne Margaret started praying.
Chip commented on Jan 28 11 at 3:47 pmIt was my first full day of college (I started at UMass-Amherst in the spring semester), and I was walking down the stairs in the Student Union building, where there was always a TV tuned to CNN or such outside the snackbar. Everyone was just sort of staring at it open-mouthed, and I couldn’t figure out why,,, until they did a replay,
Later that same day (I think), I was talking about it with a friend who I knew from high school, and he remarked that this was going to be our generation’s equivalent of the Kennedy assassination.
jennifer commented on Jan 28 11 at 5:20 pmThis event definitely had an impact on the Gen-Xers. I was in 5th grade, and it was such a big deal to watch the launch on our teacher’s tv that she had brought from home (per Ronald Reagan’s suggestion – that all students should watch the launch). To get so excited about something, and then see it blow up in front of you – not hard to see why the Gen-Xers are a bunch of cynics :)
Ludmilla Salonda commented on Jan 28 11 at 11:07 pmI was a final year journalism student at Kansas University. So I was very well aware of the historic nature of the mission leading up to the launch. But, the morning of the launch, I had not had a chance to watch the news on tv. I learnt about the tragedy as I was waiting for the lift in the main university library. I overheard other students mention some terrible tragedy that had just occurred. I enquired only to learn that Challenger had explored killing all. That sad moment in American is etched it my memory forever and I am non American.
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