[Bear_in_RoseBear]

I was 21, in my senior year at college. It was a Tuesday and I didn't have a class until afternoon, so I was sleeping in. When I woke up I turned on the television as I walked by it on my way to the bathroom. As I spent a few minutes in the bathroom it gradually penetrated into my brain that I was hearing Dan Rather on the TV. At first I thought it was just a regular mid-morning news update (which he sometimes did back then) but then I realized he was reading off the names of the shuttle astronauts. I wandered back out to see what he was talking about. It must have been the first new flash on CBS, because it took a few minutes for them to show the video.

The first time I heard the ground controller say, "Obviously a major malfunction," I remember thinking, "No sh*t, Sherlock."

After watching the news coverage for a few hours, I did eventually go to class. I'd like to say that the shock and sadness I felt changed my life, but it didn't really. Unfortunately.

[JenB]

I'm too young to actually remember it, but I remember learning about them, and the Apollo 1 crew, as I started to get interested in space. What I remember is my mother said something about the schoolteacher, something along the lines of "she shouldn't have even been there".

That stuck in my craw for years. The point of the space industry ought to be to get ordinary people into space, to do their jobs there. It ought to be not that much more of a deal than getting on a jet and going to Europe. I wonder how much damage this did to our space program - no. The space program is the damage itself. Space Ship One should have flown thirty years ago. At this rate I'll be dead before I have a chance to go into space.

[Rose in RoseBear]

I was working at Brooks AFB, San Antonio, Texas, in the centrifuge building. If you've ever been to Brooks, there's a circular drive in front of the main building. I'd just gone through the gate and was driving in the circle when the news came on my car radio. I would have been listening to KONO-AM ("Dial 86!") and singing along with the oldies ...

I've seen the explosion once, maybe twice. I simply can't watch it.