[Houmatt]

I remember it too.

I was inside a video store in New Paltz, NY, checking out the new releases. I was the only one within the store besides a woman behind the counter, and the radio was on WCBS-FM.

As I was biding my time, a bulletin broke on the radio, announcing there was an apparent explosion aboard the Challenger (and not the Challenger itself) and it was feared all seven astronauts aboard were killed.

I slowly stood up, and turned around to see the equally wide-eyed woman, and we just stared at each other for what seemed like a lifetime.

At that point, a young man came in and asked if the television in the store worked. When the woman said yes, he turned it on to WNBC-TV. They ran the replay of the explosion (and then we knew what the extent was and there was no way anyone could have been alive), and a few seconds went by, before you heard a technician break the silence with the words, "Obviously a major malfunction."

Then they came back to Tom Brokaw, who declared, "Obviously the understatement of the year."

Indeed.

[HELLRAISER II]

It really was a terrible thing and it set NASA back considerably, all we can do is to remember the astronauts and their sacrifice.

[Alberta's Child]

There was an eerie photo in Time or U.S. News & World Report after the Challenger disaster, in which one of the memorable photos immediately after the explosion was magnified many times. It showed the clearly intact Challenger crew cabin, separated from the rest of the shuttle, falling away from the main body of the explosion and the Y-shaped plumes of the booster rockets.

If anyone has a copy of this photo or even remembers seeing it, I'd like to know where it was published.