Where Were You?:
My sense is that most people over a certain age remember where they were when they learned of the Challenger space shuttle disaster, 20 years ago today. I was in Mr. Tappan's eighth ninth grade science class. Where were you?
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But on the general issue, I would think that more people would remember where they were when Reagan was shot? Am I way off base?
Incidentally, her husband is a federal district court judge in New Hampshire, if I'm not mistaken.
And, oh yes, it took about 24 hours before I heard the first tasteless joke.
Our emotional reactions to the deaths of strangers can be arbitrary and weird. The shuttle astronauts were strangers to me, no more and no less worthy of emotional investment than anyone else whose name showed up in the obits column.
(1) The Kennedy assassination: I was in a last period German language lab in high school when our teacher announced the President had been shot. We did not learn until hours later that he had died. (2) Lyndon Johnson's announcement that he would not run for re-election. I was watching television with friends at Brandeis University. You could literally hear screams of elation all over campus. I can still remember my disgust at the pygmy children of the elite rejoicing in the downfall of this tragic giant. I spent two hours walking off my anger. It was the beginning of my switch from left-Democrat to conservative Republican. The next year I voted for Ricchard Nixon. (3) The actual touchdown on the moon in 1969 (not the walk). Friends and I had been running errands and listening on the radio. We got home just in time to hear the landing on television. (4) 9/11 of course. I was recovering from pnuemonia and woke up alone at home around 9:00 or 10:00 to hear radio reports that plane appeared to have crashed into the WTC. I immediately called a friend who told me he'd heard reports of a second plane hitting the second tower.
I expect that other people may have been more strongly impacted by other events, e.g., the asssasinations of MLK or RFK, the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc., etc. It might be worth doing a separate thread to see what events have seared themselves into the memories pof people this way. I'd love to be able to do an analysis of false memories about these events by cross-referencing the stories of people who experienced them together.
I knew the launch time and was watching the sky since we can generally see the KSC launches even tho we are more than a 100 miles north.
When the launch occured I knew right away that there was some problem since it looked like none other that I had seen. I had traveled down to Cocoa Beach to watch several and had seen quite a few from the distance.
A call back to the workbase soon confirmed what occured. I can still see, in my mind's eye, the forked contrails that we saw that morning.
One of two incidents that I remember quite vividly - the other one (of course) being 9/11. Now the thing that I remember most vividly from *that* day isn't when I first heard that an aircraft had impacted one of the towers; I figured it was a general aviation craft and had doneminimal damage... (I was at work and didn't have access to a TV at the time - and the radio stations we were listening to were still trying ot sort themselves out). But I very much remember where I was when I heard that the Pentagon had been struck - my mother worked at the pentagon at the time! (She was almost diametrically opposite of the impact point, in a basement; until she got to the marshalling areas, she thought a transformer had exploded)
I don't remember exactly where I was when I heard about Columbia - but I do remember the blog I read it on (Instapundit, unsuprisingly). From that I can deduce where I was at the time - but I don't directly remember it.
Oh, yeah, and I remember where I was when I heard that Spaceship One landed successfully - I was in my car listening to the radio; on the way home from an interview.
I was about the age of many of the commenters here when President Kennedy was assasinated, and my memories of that event and where I was when it happened are even more vivid.
I heard about the Oklahoma City bombing in the same way, my senior year of high school. We said a prayer as a school then, too.
Well, now that you're twenty-four, you get to watch the same short video played over and over and over again for 48 hours straight of an airplane sitting on the tarmac after it has made a quite uneventful "emergency" landing and all the passengers have disembarked and been dozing in the airport for many, many hours. It's called "breaking news" for days. Go figure.
What I remember was CNN not saying much for a LONG time, as the debris fell. I could see a wing going end-over-end, white, then black, then white, before hitting the ocean. A parachute gave false hope; I was enough of a space geek to know that there was no escape system, but the solid booster's nose-cone on a parachute still jolted me.
This is probably because I was in Brazil.
Needless to say the event cast a pall on the rest of the day, though by 4th period already heard the tasteless 'why did they have pepsi on board?' joke (and from the class president no less).
As I look back on the tragedy that's what sticks with me most, the spontaneous generation of a bad joke in high schools, colleges and offices across the nation. (before the internet would spread these things far more effeciently)
Strange what becomes memorable.
Every other paper in the country, except for the local paper that had the original, ran the dark, almost black sky. We were accused of manipulating the picture on our computers - which we had just purchased but had not yet used. Caused quite an uproar in the newspaper business at the time. But were eventually cleared thanks to the editor of the paper, and the design editor. No names, to protect the innocent, but you know who you are, should you ever read this.
Look for the story at SND, Poytner, E&P, somewhere in there archives....
G.
For my generation at least, it certainly seems to be the monumental event that tied us. I remember the lingering effects of Watergate and was very aware of the Iran Hostage situation, but was just too young to fully grasp their impact. Challenger, to me, seemed to shock America and bring the nation together in a way that I didn't see again until 9/11
I'm not old enough to have heard the jokes either, so I had to do some googling, but I tracked down this reference about what the joke actually was.
Honestly, though, I wasn't all that affected by the news. I remember being shocked, but the shock came from realizing that of course it was still incredibly dangerous to send people into space. Launches had become so routine that I, at least, had lost sight of that fact. I also remember thinking that it was actually rather amazing that something like that hadn't happened sooner. Finally, I recall thinking that Mr. Weaver was very fortunate after all, and that some of my classmates' emotional reactions were a little over the top.
Likewise I remember Nixon resigning (taking a Berlitz language class, and getting a break because one of the teachers "wanted to watch the president cry".)
And of course 9/11/01, driving to work, hearing that an airplane crashed into the WTC. I had been on the top of the WTC, watching the small private planes flying down the Hudson below my level, and thought that one of them must have hit the building. When I heard a second plane had hit, I immediately though "terrorism".
I don't remember where I was when Reagan was shot, although I was a freshman in college.
I was a Junior in high school when my German language teacher walked into the begining of class and announced that JFK had been shot and killed.
I was at sea (off the coast of 'Nam) when the announcement of the "Eagle has landed" was made over the ship's loudspeaker system. We'd been out of touch with "The World" too much for it to have made much of an impression on most of us (it was six months before I saw the TV pictures).
BTW -- George Gregg, GREAT way to handle a typo.
I think I was more aware of that launch than average, due to the teacher-in-space issue. (Just as with Columbia, the Jews-in-space hook made it more interesting.)
I was in a stroller when JFK was shot; I was watching TV at a neighbor's when MLK was shot and she told me to run home (down the hall in our building) and tell my parents. I remember hearing the Apollo 1 report, driving with my father on the Belt Parkway or Van Wyck Expwy. Saw the Moon Walk and the Mets winning the World Series on our black&white TV.
I remember when Reagan was shot because I bought a waterbed from another undergraduate that day and was putting it together when the radio announced it.
And when 9/11 happened I had just dropped my oldest off at first grade, and had the two younger kids with my wife at a playground on the beautiful fall morning. I got the news on my cell phone, and the plane-into-Empire-State-Building being a bit of family lore I went to the car to hear the 9am headlines. They were interviewing some guy who'd seen a DC-3 come down Fifth Avenue, my wife was in a convenience store, when the second plane hit, and I knew and said right away "This is something bad."
Before my generation, but I think Friend-of-a-friend-of-my-mother was working in the building at the time. I should probably have said that it was a story that I'd heard enough times in my childhood that it immediately came to mind. I'll ask my parents (both still living) what exactly was our connection to that event.
Is that story well known outside of NYers whose families were in NY during WWII?
I had actually overheard two people in the hallway talking in hushed tones about an explosion while I sat waiting for the latter class to begin, but I didn't hear them say what had exploded and only made the connection later.
I guess we didn't watch the launch in the classroom.
By the way, does anyone remember a song in memory of Challenger called (I think) "Dare to Dream"?
2006 will be the 25th anniversary of:
The attempted assassination of President Reagan;
The attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II;
The imposition of martial law in Poland; and
The assassination of Anwar Sadat.
You quickly recognize the stunned silence of important news on a crowd of college students in front of a tv.
It still pisses me off to think about it, or if I'm surprised by the image of the explosion.
I still can't believe someone didn't do jail time over it, I think the misjudgements were that negligently severe.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
It had crossed my mind, and I may have even voiced it, that with all of the pressure to launch the shuttle something may go wrong. So when my sister asked "Guess what happened?" I responded "The space shuttle exploded." At least that's my hazy memory; I was at least not surprised. Saddened, but not surprised.
In the spring of my 7th grade year, I went to Space Camp in Huntville, AL. I remember the feelings down there were still very raw and sensitive -- a great deal of sadness and still a great deal of trying to understand what had happened.
Knowing a teacher was on the shuttle made that launch special to me -- made me feel connected to the launch in a way I hadn't felt in the past. Unfortunatly, the launch was tragic and a tremendous life lesson in disappointment for me at the time.
I'm glad we still talk about it -- for people my age (approx. 30) it was an event we'll always remember through the eyes of a child. The fear, disappointment, and confusion were overwhelming. Looking back, I wonder if NASA didn't become too conservative in the wake of the Challenger disaster -- or maybe it is the public in general that expects exploration without tradedy? It's time was ask those questions -- my generation is ready.
I'm not sure why I was watching the news instead of Babar or whatever other cartoon was on at the moment; I was the typical kid-fan of space ("that would be so much fun! you would float around all day long, even during dinner!") and might have channel flipped past the report, on my way somewhere else, and then gone back when I realized it was about space and not politics or local crime or something. I don't think I really understood anything except that the grown-ups were sad. If anyone actually explained it to me, it was probably my older stepbrother, who was a huge space nut the way I was a dinosaur freak.
I remember more clearly the anniversary broadcasts, though, which always upset me, especially when they played the video of the breakup. I don't like watching video of the planes crashing into the WTC, either.
It was my birthday, and I had anticipated going home later to a special dinner. Now all that normalcy didn't seem to matter. I had grown up totally absorbed by the Mecrury Program, then Gemini and Apollo. Astronauts were my heroes, even at age 36.
My next thought was, oh no, the Teacher!
And then my next thought was, oh no! Dr. Resnick! As a Jew I was very proud of her as the first Jew in space, and now she was dead.
And I couldn't help but suddenly remembering the day before my birthday 19 years earlier - January 27, 1967, when we heard the news that the Apollo 1 astronauts had died on the launch pad during a test.
Thanks, Chris Farris! I too grew up on LI, and was home from high school that day, and thought it must have been a snow day, but it's nice to get confirmation. I was home, watching TV - Roy Firestone's interview show on ESPN, when my Mom, who was downstairs watching some other show, yelled upstairs "oh my god the space shuttle blew up." I still don't know whether ESPN ever broke into programming to inform the viewers or not.
One of my strongest recollections was of that night, watching the CBS news, and listening to Dan Rather discuss his little model space shuttle and point to different parts of it, explaining in his "talking to 4 year olds" voice what the different parts were. I don't know why it made me so angry, it just seemed so patronizing.