[CaptainCrunch]

I was in grade 12, in the library studying for my Math departmental exams. The T.V. was on in the background but the volume was off. But for some reason some people were watching the shuttle launch.

I was heads down studying when I heard someone say that doesn't look normal. But they had the radio chatter going in the background and every thing sounded normal, I think they were announcing the solid rocket seperation. Then a few minutes after the very weird picture you saw above, they announced the explosion. I remember one girl actually started to cry when we heard that, and we all put down our study notes because we needed to see this.

There have been major disasters in the space program before, but this was our generations Apollo 13 to be honest. With Apollo 13 it dragged on for days, people were praying in the churches for those astronauts to get home, and the loss of radio signal during re-entry (and Cow can probably speak on this) was considered one of the longest few minutes in history.

In the case of the Challenger, it was just there, and then gone in an instance.



I will always remember the final words of the mission commander "roger . . . Go to Throttle up

Reagan's speech



High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .



Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.