[timsbella]

Few people saw the tragedy unfold? Bullocks. There were classrooms full of children watching because there was a teacher on board.

I stopped reading after this statement.

[John W]

Few versus the number who were able to watch earlier launches live would not be untrue.I think CNN was it for live coverage.

[SJSAMPLE]

I can't agree.
Very few classrooms had TV, let alone cable.
By 1986, shuttle launches weren't considered events by most people.

I heard about it while eating lunch in my college cafeteria.
Many people saw the replay immediately after, but most would agree that they didn't really see it live.

[SF Republican]

Few people saw the tragedy unfold? - I think they mean few people saw this coming; by the first line the author acknowledges millions saw the event.

[Strategerist]

He notes in the main text that there were children watching live in classrooms, but those were the ONLY people watching live.

[Lokibob]

This article is full of nit picking. A good example is that few "saw" the shuttle explode. If you mean "LIVE" that is probably true, since the networks cut away before the explosion. CNN was the only network still on it "LIVE", however, the networks came right back on the event, within seconds later. Yes, I watched it, and watched the events unfold, but we didn't have cable at work, so I guess I didn't see it explode "LIVE".

[fnord]

yep, BS

I saw it live, and called my Mom into the room to watch it. cant remember what channel but it was definitely on the air.

[beezdotcom]

Few people saw the tragedy unfold? Bullocks. There were classrooms full of children watching because there was a teacher on board.

Our college band was on tour, and we were in Titusville on that day to play a concert at Astronaut High School. Our bus pulled off the side of the road to watch the launch, and we witnessed the explosion live. We arrived at Astronaut High School ten minutes later, and nobody inside knew anything about it yet. It was only after WE told them, that hundreds of kids came streaming out of the school to look up at the ever-expanding clowd in the sky resulting from the explosion.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

I agree with you...I will never forget sitting in biology class and seeing it live on TV. It was a big deal because a teacher was on board.

[lawgirl]

Yep and I was one of them. Totally horrifying to an 11 year old.

[VOA]

Few people saw the tragedy unfold? Bullocks. There were classrooms
full of children watching because there was a teacher on board.

Even to this day, my friends and I use the catch phrase that
AFAIK was born of the Challenger disaster:
"What's the effect on the children?"

I don't know which journalist pumped up the phrase, but I'm pretty
sure it was used on ABC NightLine.

To this day, my friends and I use it as a quip whenever there
is a disaster, especially if the media is exploiting it for ratings.

[paltz]

NASA had arranged a satellite broadcast of the full mission into television sets in many schools, but the general public did not have access to this unless they were one of the then-few people with satellite dishes. What most people recall as a "live broadcast" was actually the taped replay broadcast soon after the event.

I watched it happen on a TV set in my 6th grade class.

[Element187]

Few people saw the tragedy unfold? Bullocks. There were classrooms full of children watching because there was a teacher on board.

agreed.. I watched the tragedy live in the field at my elementary school... of course i was too young to actually know what was going on.

[Dunstan McShane]

Few people saw the tragedy unfold? Bullocks. There were classrooms full of children watching because there was a teacher on board.

On a break between classes, I went to a local cafe and read an article in the paper about some NASA folk being worried about launching the shuttle in such cold weather. Thought, "If anything goes wrrong with the launch, the fecal matter will really hit the fan." Got up later, paid check and passed through the room with the TV just long enough, with the rest of the patrons, to watch the Challenger blow up.

Staggered to class, told my students in a quaking voice, "The Challenger space shuttle just exploded." Students burst out laughing. "It's not a damn joke!" I said. "The space shuttle's gone! The astronauts are dead!" It got very quiet after that.

I think we discussed the poetry of William Blake, but no one's heart was in it much.

[Junior]

Few people saw the tragedy unfold?

Where did you get that from? The opening sentence reads:

"Twenty years ago, millions of television viewers were horrified to witness the live broadcast of the space shuttle Challenger exploding 73 seconds into fligt..."

[SamAdams76]

The author is probably right in that many people didn't see it "live" but that is just parsing words. Within an hour or two of the tragedy, nearly every American saw the disaster as it was replayed on TV endlessly all that day on all the channels.

I was in training at the time at corporate headquarters and they herded us into the cafeteria to see the news coverage. It was similar to what happened in my workplace on 9/11. While few of us saw that second plane hitting the WTC live, within a few minutes of that, every TV in the office was on and all work had stopped.