Twenty Five Years Ago Today...

I was working for a local computer company in Florida.  It was an unusually cold morning, and on that particular day, I had to go to Vero Beach with a technician to work on a customer's computer.  I remember that it was a Commodore PET.


We were on our way back and I happened to look out the window and I saw the Space Shuttle going up.  I mentioned it to the tech and he asked if we could stop an watch.  I said, "Of course!"


Now, I had watched several shuttle launches down there.  Even as far away as were were, a couple of hundred miles, it was quite visible.  
As I watched the little dot of flame moving upward, leaving a trail of smoke, I thought, "There are people on there going to space..."


Suddenly, there was a sort of a flash, not unlike that seen in the earlier rockets when they stages would separate.  In fact, my first thought was "Well, there goes the first stage...." followed immediately by, "Wait, there are no stages on the shuttle...this is very bad."  The smoke trail formed the now familiar Y-shape as the boosters broke away.


I said, "I hope they are doing an RTLS, a return to landing site."  I just could not wrap my mind around what I knew was happening.


I turned on the radio, and found a station covering the launch.  The first thing I heard was, "Something appears to have gone very wrong..."  Over the next few minutes they talked about how NASA was trying to figure out what was going on, that there had been a major malfunction, and then, there was an odd report that said that paramedics were being dropped into the water.


But the truth quickly became clear.  Seven astronauts had died that cold January morning.

Commander "Dick" Scobee

Pilot Michael J. Smith

Mission Specialist 1 Ellison Onizuka

Mission Specialist 2 Judith Resnik

Mission Specialist 3 Ronald McNair

Payload Specialist 1 Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Teacher in Space

Payload Specialist 2 Gregory Jarvis

That evening, I went home and watch The Right Stuff.  It was my way of processing the tragedy I had witnessed.  I thought back on how risky those early flights were, and how routine space flight seemed to have become.

Over two and a half years later, on September 29, 1988 I was privileged to see the first post-Challenger shuttle launch.  I was in college, and a number of us went out and watched as America returned to space.  We all agreed, if offered the chance, we would have gladly gone along on that flight.