Where Were You 25 Years Ago Today..

just graduated from college at my first job at general motors in dayton oh.

I was watching the liftoff in my dorm room at BGSU. I called my best friend who worked at the paper and told her about it and then sat there and watched the coverage for the rest of the day. Very sad.

That launch had been delayed so many times that I actually watched it live on CNN. This is the coverage you watch over and over hoping for a different outcome. The pictures of the teacher's parents watching the launch and failure are burned in my brain.

Sitting in a pickup truck at the tank farm telling a coworker the shuttle shouldn't go up :(
Ten years ago went to Houston Space Center and the Space Museum was extremly moving
Still get choked up...

I was in Macon, Georgia at the Union Switch and Signal plant testing equipment for the Long Island Rail Road. The 2 people I was testing the equipment with were employees of that plant. Their names were Clack and Karen. Karen left for a few minutes while Clack and myself continued testing. I will never forget when Karen came back she had tears streaming down her face. When I asked her what was the matter she told me that the Challenger blow up. I looked at her and in disbelief told her in a not so nice way not to screw around and joke like that. She finally got me to turn on the radio and I just sat there in shock. I canceled the remaining testing for the day and just listened to the event. There is one thing that I would like to point out about that particular radio station we listened to in Macon that day. The event was only about 20 minutes old and I guess the station manager or DJ but have been bored with the whole affair. The DJ just turns on his microphone and says "what a real shame here is a little song to move things on." The station then plays Space Oddity by David Bowie. The radio never made it passed the opening chorus as it became part of the wall. That station in my opinion was run by a bunch of A-holes.

I was an engineer on the Space Shuttle program (with Honeywell) and was out for a noon time run (a break during work) and saw the launch and break-up of Challenger......devastating scene, visually and emotionally!

I was at home that morning having breakfast and watching it on TV.

Living and working in Bradenton, Fl

This is actually one of my earliest vivid memories. I was 6, and in first grade at Captain School in Clayton, MO. The schools were making a big deal of the launch, because of the teacher on board. I remember being upset that the first grade class would not be watching the broadcast of the launch, since my sister, who was in seventh grade, would be watching it live in class.

Despite our class not being able to watch the broadcast, I remember being aware when the launch was happening, that the other kids in the school were watching it at that moment. I also remember knowing that something had gone wrong, but I didn't know what. It wasn't until that afternoon, as we were walking home from school, that my sister told me what happened. I remember her being very upset by what she had seen. My family didn't have a TV at the time, so I didn't see footage of the incident until many years later, on the internet. I doubt if my parents would have let me see it back then anyway, given how it affected my sister.

Events like this are a fascinating glimpse into our national psychology. Sociologists must have a field day with these kinds of things. What is it about events like these that grabs our attention, and draws such an emotional response, when a chopper going down in Afghanistan, killing a similar number of soldiers barely gets barely a mention in the news, and little emotion from the general public?

I was at work, and saw it happen on tv while I was there.

I was at the Naval Hospital at Camp Lejune standing in line with my mom to get a prescription for me in the pharmacy for an antibiotic for strep throat(most likely I had a million times as a kid). We watched it happen live.

I was sitting at the same desk I am at today. -RP

having breakfast in a cafeteria in concord NH, her "town"...

was a surreal moment, to be sure. most of the schools in NH at the time set up televisions in the auditoriums for all the kids to watch, too. no one really understood at that instant what it really meant, until the shot of her parents in the audience and the announcement a few seconds later

suddenly a collective dawning that NASA was 'human' after all.

I was in High School Biology class. One of the other teachers came to the back window and called our teacher over to tell her. Our teacher called us over to the window, we could see the smoke plume as we were less than 50mi away.

At work waitressing. We had bugged the boss to let us bring in a tv so we could watch it. Service stopped for about an hour, and not one customer complained.