I’ll never forget watching the video of friends and family of Christa McAuliffe watching the Challenger launch and when it exploded, and the columns of smoke diverged, one of them said, “Is it supposed to look like that?”
So sad. I can’t imagine watching that happen knowing somebody inside.
The space program was very important to Titusville residents. We watched every launch with pride. I knew immediately that Challenger’s launch had gone terrible wrong. My history teacher had applied to be the “Teacher in Space.” He was in the top 15. He walked around in a daze for weeks after the accident.
I was taking my daughter to gymnastics class when the Columbia broke apart. Again I was watching from a parking lot. I had just told my daughter about witnessing the Challenger accident. I couldn’t speak for several minutes afterward. I went inside the gymnasium to tell some other parents that we had just lost Columbia ... nobody cared.