I was just going on duty on the night shift at the chow hall at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany when one of the guys from the dayshift we just relieved ran back into the kitchen and told us the news. We spent much of the rest of the night listening to Armed Forces Radio and the German-language RTL (Radio-TV-Luxembourg, for the benefit of the German civilian KPs) as the drama unfolded.

Walking into the library, getting ready to teach ESOL class. Just as I was walking in, the shuttle was blowing apart although we didn't realize what we were seeing at the time.

My dad was doctor to many of the early astronauts and these NASA tragedies have always hit me hard.

I was in fifth grade, religion class - I was attending a Catholic school at the time. An older girl came into the room with a slip of blue paper, and handed it to the teacher. The teacher said, "Bad news always comes on blue paper." Then she unfolded the piece of paper, and told us that the Challenger had just exploded. There was a TV in the classroom, and we spent the rest of the period watching the news coverage and talking about it.

Judith Resnik, who died in the explosion, was an AEPhi.

I was still going to a local JC at the time and it happened to occur during registration time.

I was 6 months old, so I really coulnd't comprehend anything! lol.

But i did watch a documentary on it. For some reason it made me wish that I was old enough to comprehend and just "be in the moment." I dont know, maybe i'm just weird...lol.

9th grade. Home sick. I remember my mouth falling open and how sad I was. I couldn't believe it.

I was at work in the library and the principal called me over the intercom and said "Turn on the tv - there's been a disaster." I had half the school in there within a few minutes.

Little did I know that years later I would receive the same intercom message on Sept. 11.:(

6th grade--- home sick also. I laid in bed all day long and watched the news reports. I still remember it like it was yesterday.

In 7th grade in study hall.

Sophomore in college waiting for the bus.

Fifth grade, in class.

11th grade....in my US History Class watching the explosion on TV.

Freshman in college. Heard about it from someone in the dining hall, hurried up and finished eating - then went back to my dorm room and called my best friend, an engineering major, to tell her. She was so into space stuff, that she had a space shuttle poster in her room - and I remember the two of us skipping the rest of our classes to watch tv in the tv lounge (b/c neither of us had a tv in our rooms) to see news footage. To this day, I can't see those two trails of smoke w/o getting chills......

I was in seventh grade science class, watching the liftoff and saw it live. Shortly after it happened, the principal of my school came over the intercom and announced that the Challenger had just exploded, for anyone who wasn't watching it in class that day.

Back then, it seemed like every third kid had a teacher who was supposed to be Christa McAuliffe's alternate in case she couldn't make the flight.