Most of us remember where we were and what we were doing. I bet there are a lot of interesting stories out there.
I was at work. I remember who told me, where I was told, who told that person and one more person up the chain. I remember what the person was wearing and the exact spot in the building where I was told.
I went outside to look into the sky. It was probably about 3-4 minutes after the explosion. I looked at the white smoke trails that went up, around and back down. With no knowledge at the time except "Karen said that Linda said that her husband heard a big boom" it was confusing to see all the small smoke trails coming back down. I remember describing it as a little like the large shaft of an umbrella going up and the many small framework wires of an umbrella coming back down. I could probably see over one hundred small trails coming back down.
One of the girls in the stockroom was Becky from Cocoa Beach. Her parents had owned a hotel there for many years. In "the old days" the German scientists would stay at their motel and let them know whenever they expected the moon to look beautiful at night. The Germans didn't exactly violate security regulations since they did not say that there would be a secret launch that night. They just told the parents to go out on the beach at a specific time and enjoy the Florida view. Well, the reason this is relevant is that the parents of Christa McAuliffe were staying at the motel. The parents called Becky in our stock room to ask her how they should deal with the issue of their guests losing a daughter in the shuttle explosion.
For some development work we had a satellite receiver system at work. I watched the NBC news feeds for hours. I remember seeing the footage of the crew cabin falling intact into the ocean. This was only an hour or so after the explosion. I went home that night and turned on my VCR for hours so I could get a copy of this to study. To my suprise it didn't show up on TV for several years. This was a little like JFK and his women, the press did keep a secret to protect NASA and the relatives.
I had a small "it doesn't really matter" connection to spacecraft death (well not really, but this did pop up in my brain several times). In college I was in Grissom Hall and the brass plaque honoring Gus was on the other side of the wall from my dorm desk. I don't know why they did this, but instead of using lead anchors they just drilled a hole all the way through the concrete block and into the shelf of my study desk. I still have several of my college books that have the edges damaged by cuts from the bolts that mount to the building the plaque honoring one of the men that died in the Apollo 1 fire.
Silly things make permanent memories. For a few weeks there were hundreds of signs around Brevard County honoring the fallen seven. I always wanted to take pictures of them and make a book but somehow I felt it would have been disrespectful. I never took a single picture. The one that really stuck in my head was totally unexpected. I was going to a morning vendor conference at the Hilton. As usual, they had several big meeting rooms and signs to say what vendor/event was in each room. I was running late and in kind of an "automatic operation" & "high speed mode" of rushing in. I got a little mad because I couldn't find the sign I needed. Then in front of me was one of those little black signs with the chrome plated frame and post. It had the black velvet cloth background with the little grooves where small white letter could be pressed in. It simply stated "We honor the seven that had the right stuff". That stopped me dead in my tracks. Such a simple yet powerful way to both honor and tie together the Mercury Seven and the Challenger seven.
25 years ago today
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