The Challenger Explosion: 25 Years Later

[AGDee]

I was in class and didn't have a clue until I got to my job at the campus switchboard. One of my co-workers there had been doing her student teaching and they were watching it live with a classroom full of students at the time. She was really shaken up.

Honestly, most of the time I was in college living in the dorms, I felt like I lived in a strange bubble that the outside world rarely touched. We only got one or two TV channels on our 13 inch black & white portable tv in the dorm room so watching the news wasn't high on our list. Besides, we were usually at dinner during the ONE hour of the evening that news was on. When I moved to an apartment, we got cable (OMG! Wonderful! MTV!!!!) and then I paid more attention to the news again.

Challenger year, I was a junior so I did have cable at home and could watch this on the news. I was almost 21... almost.

[excelblue]

I wasn't born yet at the time of Challenger, even though one of my fraternity's alums was on the shuttle.

I do have to note, though that it's kinda funny how the response differs between different circles. On geeky/techy websites where the same topic is brought up, the attitude makes it sound much worse than 9/11. Yet, on here, it's like just another event.

[ForeverRoses]

I was in the 6th grade- indoor recess. One of the first grade teachers came running in the room to turn on the TV- since our classroom had a computer/tv (remember when computers ran through TV monitors?). I don't think we did much school work the rest of the day, and I remember going home and watching Peter Jennings do almost constant coverage of it for the rest of the day.

I realized today that I am the same age now as Christa McAuliffe was it happened.