I was in Grade 10, and it was semester break. I was taking a bus to go see my girlfriend at the time, and when I got to her house the first thing she said was that the Shuttle had exploded. I still recall the conversation word for word:
Her- The Shuttle just blew up.
Me- No it didn't.
Her- Yes it did.
Me- No, the Shuttle doesn't _just_ blow up.
Her- Yes it did. It went Booooom! (and she make hand gestures to indicate an explosion.
Me- I'm sure you must have heard it wrong.
Her- No, none of my soaps are on, the just keep showing it over and over.
That was the moment I realized the gravity of the situation; that her soaps had been pre-empted. At that point the Shuttle launches were pretty standard, so if they were televised it was only for about 5 minutes.
I also recalling hearing people say that the Shuttle Explosion would be the "I remember where I was" event for those of us not around for the Kennedy assasination. Then September 11 happened.
Now, something I heard afterwards and haven't heard since; was a report that 3 of the astronauts survived the initial explosion, and that one of them even survived impact with the ocean for a short period of time. The explanation of it was that one of them was attempting to communicate an SOS, but was using an internal recorder rather than a radio transmitter.
The other thing I recall from that day; apparently 2 of the chase plane pilots climbed as high as they could and then ditched their planes in an attempt to free fall through the debris in hopes of catching a survivor, and then parachuting down. They were showing the debris falling when all of a sudden you could see 2 parachutes coming down. Everybody on the TV was rejoicing that some of the astronauts had survived, but it turned out it wasn't them.
As somebody who also had always wanted to be an astronaut, it was an especially sad day for me.
|