Challenger

[Thumper]

With the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, the National Geographic channel is airing Lost Tapes supposedly a new documentary. It has a lot of focus on teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe and her planned lessons from space. I don' know how much "new" stuff is in here but thought I'd put it out here, as we go through NASA's toughest week in history.

[Thumper]

It was an interesting show, made pretty much entirely of old footage and interviews. There were dress rehearsals for McAuliffe's planned lessons from space, some of their safety training, footage from the vomit commit, lots of clips of old interviews. Alot was hard to watch: you know how the story ends. They showed the auditorium full of kids from McAuliffe's school watching the launch on TV. Mrs. T pretty much burst out crying even before they showed the explosion and everybody's reactions. That was hard, it brought it all right back after all these years.

But it also showed all the astronauts at their best: competing just to get accepted, getting assigned to a mission, working hard for months to train for their flight, being away from their families and for McAuliffe, away from her job and students. Another issue was Barbara Morgan, McAuliffe's backup. She trained side by side with the flight team as did the other backups. And she was on the roof of an observation building watching her friends and colleagues die; Devastated, but at the same time happy she was still alive. And then she went on to be the first teacher in space 21 years later, although this show did not elaborate on that. As I said, it was basically all archival footage.

[geonuc]

Not sure I need to watch a show like that.

[Thumper]

It was hard, and it was sad. I chose to think of it as celebrating her life and her determination. She'll forever be known as the "first teacher in space who blew up with the Challenger." She's probably a Trivial Pursuit answer. This show gave me a glimpse into the real person she was, a mother, a wife, a teacher, an advocate. Her excitement and determination to push herself, to represent so many groups so well.

[Thumper]

This is what I'm talking about.

[Swift]

Not sure I need to watch a show like that.

Yes. I'm sad just thinking about Apollo 1 and Challenger and Columbia

[Thumper]

Yeah, this is NASA's toughest week, historically. I was a little young for the Grissom, White, and Chaffee tragedy. But the other 2...I remember exactly where I was when I got the news. I know what I was doing, and it doesn't take but a few seconds to bring the feelings right back to the surface.

[Rommie]

I was 5 days old when Challenger exploded. My mom says it was her first day out with us three kids shopping, so she remembers being frazzled and then coming home to the clouds drifting in the sky... I guess they were there for hours.

Some time ago, I stumbled on YouTube on the footage of the explosion that also had shots of Christa's parents as the shuttle exploded (as I guess it was old TV footage and some station was also carrying that live). That was pretty awful.

[grapes]

Today, some of the 8th graders said that one of their classmates's dad was in Christa McAulliffe's class then.

[Thumper]

An interview with Scobee's Widow. This actually wasn't as sad to me as it could have been.

[Thumper]

I was 5 days old when Challenger exploded. My mom says it was her first day out with us three kids shopping, so she remembers being frazzled and then coming home to the clouds drifting in the sky... I guess they were there for hours.

Some time ago, I stumbled on YouTube on the footage of the explosion that also had shots of Christa's parents as the shuttle exploded (as I guess it was old TV footage and some station was also carrying that live). That was pretty awful.

Your family was living in Eastern Florida at that time?

[Rommie]

No, I meant it was on the TV.

[Thumper]

My mistake. I was thinking of the statement, "and then coming home to the clouds drifting in the sky...I guess they were there for hours."

I took that to mean that your Mom came home, looked up and could see the remnants of the explosion. Then I thought of all the people that that really happened to.

[grapes]

On TV for hours (yes) or in the sky for hours (dunno)?

[Parrothead]

Too young at the time, to remember the first one. Challenger, I was watching the launch during lunch at university. In astronomy class we had been talking about the "upcoming" deployment of Hubble, which was scheduled for later that year. Columbia, was at home glued to the tv, that Saturday.