Remembering the Space Shuttle Challenger's Fateful Launch 25 Years Later

The disaster of the Space Shuttle Challenger is a moment that I remember vividly even 25 years later.

Just as a generation before me can still recall the moment they learned that President Kennedy had been gunned down in Dallas, and then just 5 years later, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated within months of each other- the Challenger tragedy was a world event that not only altered history, and the space program forever, but also the way my 10 year old mind perceived the harsh reality of life.

Staying home from school on the morning of January 28, 1986, had little to do with wanting to watch the Challenger launch, for our teacher had already prepared for us to view it on television till it launched and then step outside and see the shuttle soar through the sky. It was bitterly cold that morning in Central Florida and I had been sick with a cough and fever. In the days leading up to the launch, which had already been scrubbed at least twice already, precisely because of the weather, there was a buzz of excitement with this mission.

Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space program member was going to ride and while in space planned on doing two lessons for students everywhere. That week especially she was the talk among us students. I remember thinking, that if a teacher can go up to space, what else was possible?

The footage of the seven astronauts walking spaced apart, waving and smiling that morning as they prepared to load the Challenger is indelibly marked in my mind, along with millions of others old enough to recall it. Along with McAuliffe, Pilot Michael Smith, Commander Dick Scobee, Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis, and Mission Specialists Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik and Ronald McNair were raring to go. After a multitude of problems, getting the Challenger off the ground was an exciting moment when the ok to launch was finally announced.

It was very cold, but clear skies gave the promise of a beautiful launch.

But 73 seconds into flight, the Challenger broke apart in the sky, disintegrating across the Atlantic Ocean at 11:39 a.m. EST. Being just over an hour away from the Kennedy Space Center, the horror in the sky was plainly visible with my own eyes as I stood next to my weeping mother.

At 10 years old, it took me time to refocus and realize what had just happened- to understand that seven human beings that held so much promise had just been killed literally before our eyes. The smiling faces now belonged to heaven.

My mother cried and cried. Prior to the launch I remember her remarking how worried she was about them launching in such cold weather. Her worries were proven soundly. But NASA sent them up anyway. The astronauts believed that their mission was important. There were deadlines to meet, and no more delays were possible. Launch was inevitable.

The shock of the newscasters was immediate. In the pre- Internet, pre- cell phone age it is estimated that 85 % of Americans knew about the catastrophe within an hour - quite amazing for that time. It may have a lot to do with the millions of schoolchildren across the nation watching because of McAuliffe.

The news coverage was extensive and being a native Floridian who actually saw the sky erupt in smoke made this profound tragedy even more personal.

With the 25^th anniversary fast upon us, and local media coverage focusing on memories from that fateful January morning, I was compelled to share my own memory when my own children asked me what I remembered. I think it's important to take the memories that shake our world, mold our perceptions, and good or bad own them within our conscience - and share them with those other who remember, and those who do not. It's a responsibility we owe ourselves and history. Remembering the Challenger disaster and how it devastated a nation was only a precursor to the tragedies our country would later face. But it united us as a nation, and as we collectively remember the seven who were lost, let it unite us again.