18 years ago yesterday, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on take off.
Seems like it wasnt that long ago.

WOW! It doesn't seem that long ago. That's a day I will never forget. :(

Wow, I can' beleive that it has been that long. I still remember exactly where I was when I saw it. :(

:no: It really doesn't seem like it's been 18 years. I live in Fla (about a 45 minute drive from Kennedy Space Center) and we had quite a view of what happened, unfortunately. I was in high school (11th grade) and I was walking from lunch to 5th period. I stopped on the sidewalk to watch the shuttle go up with a group of my friends. The smoke trail all of sudden made this "Y" shape and we were all going "Why'd it do THAT??" We watched it for awhile, then continued on to class. 5th period was Ceramics and we had a cool teacher that always had the radio on. Minutes later, they came on the radio to tell us that the Challenger had just blown up. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and just cried. ALL of us did. It was just awful. :no:

The launch that followed that disaster was pretty special for me, though. Quite a moving experience. That same group of friends that I was with on the day that the Challenger had exploded had decided to go out to Jetty Park, which is about as close to the Space Center as the public can get without special passes or clearance. It's right on the beach and there were TONS of people out there. (We camped out) When it launched, you could feel the ground rumbling under your feet and the power of that shuttle lifting off. EVERYONE... friends & strangers... held hands that morning on the beach while it went up. We held hands until we couldn't see it anymore. What an awesome feeling! :)

Wow.. what a sad day that was... I was in class filled with an auditorium full of college students and the announcement came and we were all just paralyzed....


that goes to show you that.. TIME KEEPS ON TICKING TICKING TICKING INTO THE FUTURE... (Steve Miller Band.... Fly like an Eagle..)

Enjoy Life while you have it.....

Wow, 18 years! I'll never forget that day.

Damn, it has been 18 years now since that awful day.

I remember watching that newscast and the footage of the astronauts when they were training and other interviews. At the time, it was hard to believe that the happy and excited people were the same ones in the shuttle explosion. Actually, it's still strange to see that at one moment they were talking with great expectations about their mission and the next... all those dreams and hopes dashed in the span of a minute. Tragic.

I was probably barley half a year old maybe?

I don't remember this but the feeling is still the same.

I can't believe it's been 18yrs already. I was in 6th grade and we got to watch the takeoff on tv, and I knew something was wrong, and the teachers hurried over and turned off the tv. I can still remember crying that day. Another day I'll never forget.

Annette

Eighteen years!!! :eek: The time certainly does pass by quickly, as I remember that day as if it were just yesterday...

That long already... I was in 3rd or 4th grade when that happened and I remember watching it on TV in class and just feeling numb. I remember everyone talking about the teacher that was on the shuttle. I can't believe so much time has passed.

Wow...18 years...doesn't feel like it's been that long. Still makes me just as sad to think about it. :(

I was in high school in New Hampshire at the time, so every classroom had the launch being shown live on TV, since Christa McAuliffe was going up as the first teacher into space. (She taught at Concord High School, which was about a half hour north from where we were in Merrimack. She even had a lesson plan that she was planning to broadcast later that day.) Needless to say, we were all shocked into a mind-numbing silence when we realized what happened. :(

Wow! I can't believe it. 18 years! I was in 11th grade. 3rd period, home ec. class. Someone came to the door of the classroom and told us that it had happened. We all ran out into the commons area of the school where they had TV's set up and we watched it for most of the rest of the day. It is so hard to believe that much time has gone by.

LET'S NEVER FORGET....

http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/013004dntexspaceshuttle.678e81e1.html

Jasper wrote:18 years ago yesterday, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on take off.
Seems like it wasnt that long ago.
I really never forgot that awful event. I was in school when it happened and we got let out for a half day. My teacher at the time, just bursted into tears of sadness. You should have seen him. I myself could not beleive it.

It's hard to beleive it has been 18 years. I was so very young back then. I guess I was about 11 years old then.

History seemed to repeat itself all over again, just last year on the same day of super bowl sunday this year Space Shuttle Challenger II also blew up. That made it all come back. Those horable memories.

In the same time the crew of both Shuttles are partying to endless 80's somehere out there in the vast universe of which we are only a small part of. For the crews of both Shuttles, time is endless. For us however, time is the preditor which stalks us. Only time will make the call. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived!

Thanks for not letting us forget Jasper. It comes back to us from time to time. But, you're exactally right. We need to never forget.:(

Cheers Everyone!:)

Eighteen years ago,your being lined up to go to lunch in the third grade and your teacher says something about the shuttle exploding.Being a NASA/space shuttle fan and still seriously considering as a possible profession(although studying hurricanes had somewhat surpassed by then) you automaticly think that one of the boosters or engines had had a problem and it was once agian grounded.Not the case......

In the hours later,I would learn the horrror just as everyone else.The memorial we had a few days later still ranks up as one of the two days(a death involving a kid at my high school being the other) were I feel I experinced real death and real grief.It is a feeling,I can't really describe and it isn't a feeling that I felt even when I lost members of my own family.I can only say that it was very surreal.

I was in high school in New Hampshire at the time, so every classroom had the launch being shown live on TV, since Christa McAuliffe was going up as the first teacher into space. (She taught at Concord High School, which was about a half hour north from where we were in Merrimack. She even had a lesson plan that she was planning to broadcast later that day.) Needless to say, we were all shocked into a mind-numbing silence when we realized what happened. :(

I will be graduating from New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord, where she began her teaching career (and where Jenna Lewis of Franklin, NH was getting her education when she got the call to appear the first time on Survivor). The Planetarium there has been named after her, and it's hugely successful. She would be proud of the legacy that she left behind, I am sure, and she would have been thrilled about all the good things that are happening to her school. All of her former professors talk fondly of her.