It was twenty years ago today...

...that the space shuttle Challenger was destroyed.

The Challenger accident was the JFK assasination of my generation, in that everyone who is old enough to remember it knows exactly where they were when they heard about it.

I was a junior at Northeastern University at the time. I had just come back from a late morning class and, as I usually did after a class that ended at 11:30, I returned to my apartment to make some lunch and watch the last few minutes of The Price is Right before the Noon news came on.

I turned on the TV, and saw that they were covering the shuttle launch. The first thing that went through my head was that the networks must have been covering it live because Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space, was on board. I watched the shuttle sail majestically into the heavens for a few seconds, then suddenly it exploded into a cloud of white vapor.

I stood, thunderstruck, not being able to grasp what I had just seen. I skipped class the rest of the day, and learned that Challenger had been destroyed with all hands; Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ron McNair, Greg Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe.




I could go on for pages about the legacy of the Challenger astronauts, the effect the disaster had on the country and the lessons NASA did (or didn't) learn. For today, however, I honor and remember the courage of these seven astronauts and thank them for their service to our country.