I’ve witnessed quite a few tragedies over my years, standing as a tearful observer as the world came tumbling down on the lives of others. Twenty five years ago, I joined millions of television viewers who watched in silent horror as the Challenger and its crew disappeared into billowing clouds of smoke; I watched the agonized faces of Christa McAuliffe’s family as they stared towards the heavens in shocked disbelief. And I cried along with them for their loss.
It was the world’s first high-tech catastrophe to unfold on live television. Adding to the anguish was the young audience: School children everywhere tuned in that morning to watch the launch of the first schoolteacher and ordinary citizen bound for space, Christa McAuliffe.
She never made it.
McAuliffe and six others on board perished as the cameras rolled, victims of stiff O-ring seals and feeble bureaucratic decisions.
That damned “malfunction,” due to a faulty, inexpensive, O-ring in one of two solid-fuel rocket boosters, brought tears and shattered the notion that NASA — which put men on the moon — could do no wrong. Seventeen years later, a second space shuttle, the Columbia, disintegrated during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere over Texas, killing all seven crew members.
But it’s the Challenger that prompts the question: Where were you when the space shuttle disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean at 11:39 a.m. on Jan. 28, 1986?
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