Where were you when Challenger Exploded?

[vorlon13]

I was unemployed and living in a shabby apartment, 6 months to go until I hit 12 Steppers.

I had TV on and was watching The Price Is Right.

CBS interrupted the show with their breaking news bulletin screen. I already had a tape in the VCR, hoping they would show launch live that morning, so I hit 'record'.

Dan Rather came on, without his glasses and looking visibly shaken, and said there had been an explosion on the shuttle.


And I had a meltdown.


I had known since loosing my job around Thanksgiving I was in deep shit in regards to my drinking and drugging, but took heart with the space program as a bright spot midst all my problems. I remember calling a local help line, I was just so inconsolable. All day long they repeated the launch video, CBS was scrambling (I didn't change channels till the tape ran out 5 or 6 hours later) to get experts on air. Dan got his glasses back at some point. There was some incorrect information relayed; for instance, a parachute was filmed coming down in the wreckage and debris and it was reported to be a coast guard member parachuting in to rescue the astronauts when it was actually the 'chute from one of the SRBs that had been self destructed after the orbiter and external tank had disintegrated.

At first, they only had the NASA feed relayed during the launch they had recorded, so they only had the one angle to show all day long. We didn't know about o-rings or cold temperatures or "the twang" or any possible launch constraints yet.

There were some poignant moments, they interviewed someone from LA, and they said ALL the cars on the freeway slowed down at the same time as everyone's radios interrupted with the news.

There was some accurate analysis that day, they noted recognizable pieces of debris emerging from the explosion, wing, fuselage, cabling.

I would keep having crying jags all day, but I did manage to get out briefly and fill out a job application at a nearby factory.

As the investigation went on and the sad details emerged about the concerns expressed (and ignored) prior to launch, it just was a terribly rough experience.

I look back now and realize I was ready for 12 Steppers that day, unfortunately I had to endure another 6 months before that happened.


Sounds silly, but I could not watch TPIR for years and years afterwards. I have my own copy of the accident report, and a friend gave me her beta video tape of the NBC coverage that day. The Rogers Commission hearings were on PBS as I recall, (didn't have cable but I still taped it) when the astronauts presented their testimony. Sally Ride would not go on the record with any questions out of respect for her colleagues, but if she had something important to add she would whisper it to chairman Rogers and he put it in the record.

I should probably get those tapes out and burn them to DVD . . . . .