The loss of the Challenger was somehow one of those moments everyone who lived through it seems to remember the same as 9-11 or, from what I have heard, the deaths of JFK and FDR. We all know exactly where we were when we learned the disaster had happened. Growing up in Florida, I was among those who had a front-row seat to the national tragedy.
My mother recalls watching the shuttle break apart on her way to lunch, not knowing what was going on until one of her students saw the splitting streaks of smoke and said 'Something is wrong.' I have a friend who recounted online today sitting with his first-grade class 30 miles from the launchpad and watching the shuttle go up, then turn into a fireball and crash back down.
I didn't watch it happen. My second-grade class at Beverly Shores Elementary had watched other launches, but this one occurred while we were at lunch. But we were all interested in the flight. My teacher had met Christa McAuliffe and we were planning to watch the video lessons the teacher would beam down to Earth. It was something we were all looking forward to, and living just an hour from Kennedy Space Center, the whole affair was something with which we were all connected in a more real way than, say, kids in Wisconsin.
When we came back from lunch, the teacher was crying. She sat us all down and explained to us what had happened. Things were quiet at first, then we started asking questions. How did this happen? Nobody knew yet. We had to wait. What about the astronauts? How were they? Somehow, we all presumed the astronauts could just hit the eject button and escape. She explained to us there was no way any of them could survive, and that they had all died.
I doubt many in the rest of the country realize the degree to which this tragedy was felt by the state of Florida. Like all students at the time, we had read our Weekly Readers and were anxiously awaiting the launch of a teacher into space. But when disaster struck, we saw the lingering streaks of smoke in the sky that seemed to last all day. The local news replayed the tape again and again, even when the national news had tired of it.
We also waited for the successful launch that would put this tragedy out of our minds, but which would not come for a long and painful two years. Instead of another shuttle launch, we just got to hear reports about O-rings. I was just a kid, so I certainly didn't understand the devastation the shuttle loss caused to the local economy, but the loss of life and a presumably safe orbiter was on the top of most minds for a long time.
This anniversary snuck up on me, which is a little odd since I was just at Kennedy last weekend. I took my son there for the first time on a Cub Scouts campout where we slept under the Saturn V. My son was really struck by the stories of astronauts who had lost their life in the pursuit of space exploration. Tales of Apollo I, of Columbia and, of course, the Challenger were among the space stories that seemed to resonate the most with the 10-year-old child.
I've been hard on NASA sometimes since I launched this blog. The program can be defensive, acting like it should be exempt from the fiscal constraints of government. And I maintain our best chance at accomplishing truly successful space travel is by encouraging private sector involvement in spaceflight.
But there is no question mankind would not have accomplished what it has in outer space if not for the drive of the people at NASA. The fact astronauts are willing to put their lives on the line, even after the disasters which have destroyed 40 percent of our orbiters, is a huge part of that. We owe everybody who has ever ridden these high-powered dynamite sticks into orbit a huge debt of gratitude.
I think that is why losing Challenger is such a memorable experience for every American who lived through it. We all could feel, as those smokescreens besmirched out skies, that a sacrifice had just been made, but that our eyes still needed to focus on the stars. It was a soul-searching moment when, as an entire human race, we had to weigh the price of life against our wish to reach beyond the limits of our atmosphere.
The astronauts on that orbiter would never want the dream abandoned. I hope that never happens.