January 28th, 1986

[lagilman]

I was getting ready for class when I heard a noise that sounded like a cross between a low scream and a moan, coming from a corner suite in my dorm. I ran to see what was wrong, and caught the coverage of the explosion* on small television screen.

For years, I thought that would be the most horrific thing I would ever see.


Francis R. Scobee. Michael J. Smith. Judith A. Resnik. Ellison S. Onizuka. Ronald E. McNair. Gregory B. Jarvis. Sharon Christa McAuliffe.


Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring 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 windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

-Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee, 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941






*yeah I know it didn't technically explode. But that is the image in my mind, and I'm not a rocket scientist, okay?

Comments

[wookiemonster.livejournal.com]

Given how the orbiter broke up...explosion works.

Challenger was my favorite shuttle. Still is, actually.

Do you mind if I repost on my blog? I think this is better than anything I would have come up with this year...

[lagilman]

Descriptively 'explosion' works. In terms of accuracy...not so much. But I was 19 and "explosion" was what struck me and stayed there forevermore.


just remember to credit, and a multiple of sins are forgiven.

(the poem is pretty much a standard tribute -- I haven't brainwidth to spare for anything else right now, I fear)

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

I remember that. I made a sound like the one you describe.

And I remember my then husband saying, "I bet you don't wish you could be an astronaut now." And I remember saying, "I'd go up tomorrow," and thinking that they died doing what they loved and what a horrible loss it all was.

You know, on Zoloft I couldn't cry about things. I'm glad I'm on Pristiq and I can still cry when I read that poem. It was always posted somewhere near where I worked when I was in the Air Force. I love it.

[infiniteviking]

And I remember my then husband saying, "I bet you don't wish you could be an astronaut now." And I remember saying, "I'd go up tomorrow,"

*points* That's pretty much the conversation my mom and I had after Columbia. I still want to go up there, but wish they'd update the blasted ships already. *sighs*

[tru2myart.livejournal.com]

I was watching it in my 8th grade science class. I remember when it happened there was silence in the room, noone breathed...and then there was the collective sigh of sorrow.

[ckd]

I still resent being told to get back to the day's reading in AP English after the announcement was made.

That March, I was at a student conference being hosted by Dick Scobee's high school. One of the display cases in the hallway had a memorial to him, complete with a photo of him taken on a previous flight with a sticker of the school mascot and a huge grin on his face. I never met him, but when I saw that photo I really wanted to have had the chance to.

In late June, the national conference for the same student group was in Washington, DC. I made a trip out to Arlington, and stopped at his gravesite. There wasn't anything I could say, or do, or leave; I still had to go.

[fatbaldguy60.livejournal.com]

I was in an APC in a missile field in North Dakota when the news came across our walkie-talkies. We got back to site and stood there for hours watching it over and over.

That and 9/11. I remember where I was, and mostly, sadly, exactly how I felt.

[blazedglory.livejournal.com]

I was in the kitchen of the house I shared with half a dozen other upperclassmen.

The words of the technical issues came later. The images of the moment are more important to many of us. That's the part I won't get out of my mind.

Thanks for posting.

[infiniteviking]

Columbia's the one I remember. I was alive when Challenger died, but too young to understand.

That poem, though, has been hanging around my notebooks ever since high school; I always have a copy of it somewhere.

*salutes*

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

I was a sophomore in high school, and I'm 99% sure I was one of the two last people on campus to find out about it, almost an hour and a half after the fact. I'd been down in the music department practicing piano and then having my weekly lesson, and it wasn't until the lesson was over that another student came down and said "horrible about the Space Shuttle, eh?" and my teacher and I were like, "what?!" Then we turned on the radio.

I ran over to the school store and the place was packed with students watching the tv. I'll never forget how quiet it was in there, just the sound of the tv coverage. Our school's Astronomy teacher had made it pretty far through the Teacher In Space selection process (IIRC he was a semi-finalist), so it hit a bit closer to home, as well.

[msdori.livejournal.com]

I was in Panama at the time. Watching live, and I can still see that Y smoketrail, even after all these years.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I can't hear/read/see that poem without thinking of the Challenger. It still brings tears to my eyes.

wow

[efender.livejournal.com]

that was one of my first memories. I was 6 and me and my mom had just dropped off my brother at school. She set me up in the living room in front of the tv w/ my sandwich and chips and juice and turned it on. I was really excited b/c my mom had talked it up so much that week and I was probably more excited that it was going to be just me and mom (no annoying older brother!). I remember seeing the explosion and my mom gasping. She rushed to turn it off and then told me something about fireworks--I can't really remember. I know that later she explained what had really happened. She told me that this would be one of those rare moments in life where when you talk to someone they will remember exactly where/when/what like she did w/ the Kennedy assassination. But...our generation has had too many of these moments...I just hope that this will spare our children of these kinds of memories--Thanks Laura--this too is one event that should never be forgotten.

[handlebar605.livejournal.com]

I was a Navy recruiter and I was driving in to work. I later found out that a guy I had been on a sub with, was one of the dive team that recovered parts and debris for examination.