Posted on 01/28/2010 7:51:36 AM PST by al baby
Where were you ? 24 years ago today...When The Shuttle STS-51-L was lost ... RIP... Smith, Scobee, McNair, Resnik, Onizuka, McAuliffe and Jarvis
Hangar Deck Leading Petty Officer USS Okinawa LPH-3 inport Naval Station San Diego, CA walking aft.
I was in a classroom at Fort Leavenworth, KS where I was attending the Combined Arms and Services Staff School. Our group leader turned on the TV to CNN and we were all aghast. Classes were suspended for the remainder of the day.
The Enlisted Mess on the USS Iwo Jima was undergoing renovations, so I was having lunch on the USS Yellowstone when the news came across.
At sea, they didn’t tell us for three days.
Working as a secretary in a telecommunications firm. A lot of the engineers were JPL alumni. They had a big tv set up in the lab to watch the launch. Needless to say, it was just devastating...everyone from the head of the company to the support staff were weeping openly.
I happened to be watching it on TV, something I’d probably not done since the early late 60s period when EVERYONE watched these things.
I saw the thing explode and the confusion that ensued.
I noticed the shock on the face of one of the viewers there at the scene and realized it was the kid actor Peter Billingsley who did the famous Jean Shepherd “Christmas Story” movie with Darren McGavin.
And of course, I couldn’t help but absorb the bad news that a legendary physicist, Richard Feynman, had testified to NO effect, prior to the launch, that problems were likely to happen due to the way the temperature might effect the O-Rings. His advice went unheeded.
-PJ
I was skipping high school to get extra sleep before a volleyball game and witnessed the tragedy on TV with my grandma. When I got to school after lunch and headed to French class, I told my teacher what happened and she accused me lying and got really mad (Chienne!). It wasn’t until she turned to radio on that everyone realized what had happened.
8th grade. Watching it live on a TV they rolled into the classroom.
The thing I remember most about that day was how fast the jokes came out.
I swear it felt like within a couple hours I heard the joke about where Christa McCaulafe spent her summer vacation.
We didn’t have armies of “grief counselors” back then either, maybe that’s why kids were so callous (or maybe it was just 8th grade boys being boys)
At the moment it happened, I was in a meeting at Randolph AFB, Texas. When we emerged from the conference room, everyone was glued to the TV; it had been about 10 minutes since the explosion.. debris was still falling into the water.
accused me ‘of’ lying...
Working at a chemical plant in LaPorte Tx.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
US Army, morning formation, Ft. Bliss Texas... vivid sad memory.
ROTC class.
I was working as an intern at the Kitt Peak National Observatory’s Tucson HQ. KPNO had some involvement with one of the experiements on board, and many of the staff knew at least one of the astronauts. Needless to say, the place effectively shut down that day, and was pretty quiet the rest of the week.
I was working in the neonatal intensive care unit when I heard the news...was about ready to eat lunch so went to one of the lounges with a TV to watch the news...a very sad day for sure.
Watched it happen in my dorm room at UMass-Amherst.
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