Four years old at the time, so I don't have any memories of it myself, but my parents were moving us out of the basement and into the freshly remodeled upstairs of our house at the time.

I was 3 1/2 years old so I'm guessing I wasn't watching it live. Terrible event regardless.

Elmo Jones: I was working at Sears, with a wall full of TVs.

The Southern Dandy: I can't remember where I was at or what I was doing when I heard about the Columbia exploding.
It was a Saturday or Sunday morning. Were you hungover?

I don't remember [sobs]

I was in flight school in Daytona. That morning was so cold when I left the dorm we had puddles of solid ice on the ground. The practice airspace south of Daytona was restricted to keep us from possibly wandering into launch airspace. They had already busted a Florida Highway Patrol pilot for entering restricted airspace in an FHP patrol plane. They yanked his certificate for that one.

I was returning from the north flying south over the Halifax (intercoastal waterway) and inbound to land on 25R at DAB when I saw the shuttle ignition and lift off. A few seconds later, it was visible to the tower and they asked if I had it in sight... "roger that!"

Then, it happened. I was confused because I'd never seen a launch from altitude, but then I knew something bad was happening. By this time, I had to turn back to the west to enter final approach. All the time, I kept putting the 172 into a little slip to raise the left wing and look at it. I kept hoping I would see the shuttle come out of that mess to return for landing (theoretical maneuver if they had aborted the launch). I landed, turned off the active and checked in on the ground control frequency. Another pilot asked what was happening, and the controller responded, "We lost the shuttle."

The cloud of debris and the smoke trails hung in the air all day. Everyone on campus just had a stunned feeling and we walked with our heads up just staring at the cloud. To this day, I can't watch it on TV - It's burned into my brain.

What is so sad is that the evidence eventually released (that we found out much sooner due to our own contacts at NASA) was that the crew was conscious on the way down. I'm sure they were doing all they could to figure out what happened and fought the dead controls all the way down... they were pilots - great ones - and that's what pilots do until the end.

GoSurfing: Although I was too young to experience Challenger (6 months old), I'd like to share some pictures I have of these awesome spacecraft. I was fortunate enough to grow up in Brevard (Countdown) County. One of my fondest memories is of my dad taking my brother and I out of elementary school for a day when we first moved to the area, just so we could watch a shuttle launch from Cocoa Beach Pier. He's the one that got me fascinated in the space program. Best dad ever.

/Shameless posting of pictures not intended to threadjack
//Please support NASA and the space program.

Perfectly germane to the conversation.

Carry on.

CavalierEternal: I wasn't born until March 8th, 1989. Odds are, I had yet to even generate as a sperm cell.

Similar predicament here, which got me to thinking. I was born 3 years later, and we can probably safely assume my father, being 25, was emptying his tanks atleast daily... Now assuming sperm is produced through diet, the products used to create me probably came from some sort of food stuffs. To avoid delving too deep, we'll simplify and assume several fruits, veggies, chicken, bread, and milk were on the menu. Now parts of each of these would have come together to create an individual me. Let's pick one of those things, say, an apple. That apple likely came from a local orchard. The nearest orchard was about 200km away. That apple probably grew a month or so before my conception. So in part, roughly 2 years after the challenger exploded, I was an apple. Assuming the tree was using nutrience from the ground to produce fruit, as well as sunlight, we can assume I come partially from light from the sun, but also, minerals from the ground. Those minerals probably come from fertilizer, or whatever else fell and died in the area, but let's assume fertilizer from a nearby composting company. Taking composting time, apple growing time, seasonal crop harvesting, etc, into account, let's say that 6 months earlier, I was part of the raw materials being added to the fertilizer to produce it. Now let's assume this company gets some of their raw materials from a recycling company, and mixed in with some of this stuff are odd bits from machines not properly cleaned and dirty shipping containers. That tiny little speck of silicone sitting there probably used to be a part of what made me. That silicone could have come from anywhere, the fertilizer is shipped from hundreds of miles away, and the recycling comes from even further. The silicone probably used to be part of something bigger, and mostly made of silicone, a dildo for example. So in theory, I believe atleast a small part of me, probably around the time the challenger exploded, was inside your mom.

I was late to this party but still wanted to throw in my comment.

I was being born. Well, I had just finished being born. 11:34ish.


/Happy 25 years of consecutive breathing to me!

Mrs. Williams' second grade class. It made me sick to my stomach.

// Happy birthday, Adan :)

I was in fifth grade - 10 years old. The principal came over the intercom and told us what happened. Saw it on TV when I got home from school. I remember - in my ignorance - I thought the explosion was small and that they would have survived. I didn't understand the magnitude of what had actually happened.

bobbiepaws: I remember - in my ignorance - I thought the explosion was small and that they would have survived. I didn't understand the magnitude of what had actually happened.

Well, the evidences points to the fact that they probably did survive the explosion, but there was no way in hell they could have survived a 200mph impact with the ocean

I was asleep when they shuttle launched because I was home sick with strep throat. I had the TV on so I could watch the launch, but couldn't stay awake. When I woke up, Dan Rather was on TV talking about the tragedy and what had happened, and it was the same on all the TV channels, including the UHF stations that showed cartoons.

WORST. SICK. DAY. EVER.

Godspeed STS-51-L.

Phoenix_M So was I, I was running try not to be too late for my class. Got there just before the teach walked in, stunned clearly, sat on one of the empty seats in the front row and informed us, then canceled class for the day.

Gestating.

Home from school, snow day. Had we been at school we would have been watching the launch live in class.

LadyHawke: I was two.

this

I just remember my fifth grade class preparing to watch the launch on the overhead tv, but having to sit in the hallway because of behavioral issues.

Still stewing in bitterness from being removed from the classroom, another student returning from seeing the launch in the principal's office told me that "the shuttle blew up", to which I peevishly responded "good", thinking that they were teasing me for having missed it. When they reiterated that it had indeed exploded, I remember walking into the completely stunned classroom, the tv having been turned off, taking my seat at the teacher's request, and trying my damnedest to behave for the rest of the day.

It was nighttime here. I was just a kid, and I dreamed of becoming an astronaut some day. My Dad and I were the only ones out of our family that watched the launch live.

I remember the explosion very clearly, and how I was far more shocked than I was upset. I also remember them showing a parachute at one point and thinking with relief "oh it's okay! they got out!" until I noticed just how gloomy all the commentary was.

My Dad was yelling at the TV because the reporters were talking over the official NASA radio transmissions which were still being broadcast in the background. He was pissed off, saying the commentators were clearly clueless and if they shut up and listened to the announcements maybe they'd actually know what was happening.

I think what really got to me was watching BBC's kids news show 'Newsround' the next day. The explained a lot of what happened, but at one point also showed all of the teacher's students sitting in their school hall, watching the launch happen live and crying as they realised that their teacher had died. They only showed about ten seconds of it, but it was just so heartbreaking.

In school watching it happen live. I grew up where the space shuttles were built and the street near my house is where they would roll out the new shuttles to get them to Edwards AFB. The street was renamed Challenger Way after this disaster. Had the wing of the Challenger go over my head when it was rolled out. (And most of the other shuttles as well.

/Saw the Columbia land on it's maiden flight.

I was a bundle of cells in a uterus.

Sixth grade, they told us it happened and then the teacher wheeled in a TV and the other sixth grade class came over to our room and that's all we watched the last few hours of class.

I was in the second grade stuck at school. I don't remember watching it live but hearing from teachers/other students that the shuttle had blown up.

Where was I? Emily Gray Jr. High.

I missed the first one live, but I saw the second shuttle hit the second tower, and that's when I knew the space program was at war.

It was my 14th birthday. We were watching in 8th grade english class. Since the shuttle launches were still a bit of a novelty, we didn't know right away that it was an explosion -- we almost thought it was supposed to happen. UGH

I was at home sick and my mom called the house and woke me up to tell me to turn on the TV so I could watch the launch - Turned it on right as was blowing up.

Senior in college. Took a break from my co-op position to go watch the launch on the big-screen TV at the Student Center. I was optimistic since they had postponed the launch from the 27th (after earlier pushing back from the 22-24th), because that was the anniversary of the Apollo 1B fire, and my birthday (I just turned 50 yesterday, so CSB). I didn't want them to launch on the same day we lost Grissom, White and Chaffee.

Walked into the SC, heard them say "Roger, go with throttle-up", and the whole place just fell silent. I watched the coverage for about an hour, then went back to work....where they were still watching it on a TV in one of the offices.

I was a senior in college. It was a Tuesday and i was the New Editor for 2 newscasts of the college cable TV stations.
I was walking into the ATO house and I was just going up the stairs when my dramatic buddy, Beyer said, "I cant believe it. The challenger blew up." I thought he was talking about someone's Dodge Challenger biting the dust.

As I got to the top of the stairs, everyone was in groups watching TVs.

I reported to the TV station early. At the time, we had 'advanced' video equipment that could show 3 frames a second. I watched the explosion footage over very slowly. You could see a little sliver of fire pop out of the edge of the rocket and then just start to engulf it.

It turns out almost every professor had the same idea as me and I estimate I ran that footage 40 times that night just for faculty members.

Almost every news story on the newscasts that night were about the shuttle. But the funny thing was there was almost nothing to report. No one knew anything. I realized it would probably be months before we had any answers. This was frustrating. You wanted someone to give you some educated guess about what happened, but no one really had any idea. No one had any answers.

Watching that footage over and over was not the best thing for my head. It was incredibly depressing.

That day really sucked but 9-11 was much worse.

Mini Ditka: Wood Shop, senior year of high school. I remember it like it was yesterday.

/my mom died 3 days later :-(

Aw, man. That sucks :( I know it's 25 years too late and all, but condolances.

I was 5 at the time, and still living in the states. I have a memory of my Mom (since deceased) sitting me down and saying "OK, watch this, but don't cry...".

Thing is , I also remember having already seen it, so it must have been a news repeat or something. I have so many vivid memories from back then, and I know I was fascinated by the space thing. I had models and models of the shuttle everywhere - I loved that shiat. I always wanted to know who "Roger" was.

I was a fetus plotting my escape from the womb.

Y'all are n00bs. Get off my lawn!!

"I was in junior high, dickhead!"

I was in my office and the office clown stuck his head in my door and said "the shuttle just blew up". Nobody believed him, I told him that was a joke in very poor taste.

We didn't have a single TV in the building, believe it or not, so the clown went and got a TV out of his car and we barely got a VHF reception through the polarized window glass.

I think about 300 people tromped through my office that day just to watch the TV footage replay over and over.

On my way to work..listeneing to the launch on the radio.
Radio cut away to commercial after launch so I went in the building.
5-10 minutes later somebody came running in and said the shuttle blew up

I was 8 and on a school bus on the way home from school. I heard the news on the radio, which the driver always had on. I was a pretty precocious kid and a big nerd who read a lot of sci-fi. I remember I had the sudden clear insight: All that shiat I read about was never going to happen, not in my lifetime. I was never going to be an astronaut, and we weren't going to have bases on the moon, colonies on Mars.And I was going to have to find another dream. It hurt then and it hurts now.

Physics lab class. The TA came in and announced it.

Mini Ditka: Wood Shop, senior year of high school. I remember it like it was yesterday.

/my mom died 3 days later :-(

Although it's been a long time, please accept my condolences. I lost my Mom in 87...I feel your pain

I was in San Diego, California. I lived near my dad, who had to fly to FL to try to help figure out what went wrong, as he was one of the engineers who designed it.

/not kidding
//CSS, right?

Grade school, 1st grade. I had no idea that gravity of what happened. We were sitting in an auditorium watching the launch live on a series of TV carts that lined the stage. I remember being more fascinated at the fact that we were actually in the district auditorium than why we were there. I was also interested in staring at the barrettes of the girl in front of me- she had a dozen of neon-colored barrettes in horse shapes all over her hair. When it exploded there was gasps and, "whats going on?" Principal came onstage, turned the TVs of and talked some more. I continued to stare at the pony barrettes and tuned out what he had to say. I guess it all seemed like some kind of performance, being that it was all on a stage plus as young as I was.

Procedural Texture: I missed the first one live, but I saw the second shuttle hit the second tower, and that's when I knew the space program was at war.

/+1

On my way to work at the restaurant. The DJ on the radio cut in during a song and said, "The space shuttle Challenger has exploded. We will have more details as they come in."