25 Years ago today, The Challenger Shuttle Disaster.

[What Exit?]

It was a slightly unusual morning on the ship. The shuttle launch was getting extra coverage as the school teacher was going up with the Astronauts. I was always a space buff anyway and a bunch of us arranged to be in the shop and glued to the TV for the launch. We stared in horror at the scene that unfolded. It seemed impossible; it was too hard to understand what just happened. When realization finally settled in I was just numb the rest of the day. Well with one exception, some wiseass that afternoon cracked the 7-Up joke and I without thinking punched him, dropped him, called him an ass and walked off. This was especially odd as I cannot think of another punch I threw as an adult. I don’t think I have and it was just an automatic reaction.

So that was my memory of the day in news 25 years ago. Please share your own.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

I was on the farm. My brother and I had just had some lunch. I left the kitchen, went in the other room and turned on the TV. They seemed to be showing the same thing over and over again. It took me a while to figure out something was going on and call to my brother: "I think something happened to the Challenger".

[Zuul]

My memory is confused, because I would have just turned five in January of 1986 but I remember discussing it in school and releasing balloons as a memorial. It might be that there was a memorial on the one year anniversary and then I conflated the Challenger Disaster with PEPCON, which happened within sight of my school and sent several students to the hospital.

[The Original An Gadaí]

I wasn't really aware of it at the time as I was just too young. In my memory the first horrible news event that "pings my radar" was the Piper Alpha oil rig explosion in 1988 which killed 167.

[OneCentStamp]

I was sitting in my 7th grade computer science class, and we were all watching the launch live on TV. There were three or four classes' worth of kids in the room, probably 100 kids, since not all the classrooms had TVs.

As soon as it exploded, everything just sort of exploded into shocked mumbling. All the kids were afraid to say anything out loud, but were whispering. The only clear sound was one of the female teachers starting to cry, and then the cries muffled as she buried her face in the shoulder of one of the other teachers.

[Orual]

I do not remember it.

My older sister watched it in class.

[Sarahfeena]

I remember this so well...I was in college, and went to the TV room in the lounge to watch All My Children. The little room was crammed, and I didn't know why until I saw what was on TV instead of the soap. Very sad day.

Funny story about it, if a funny story can be told. I gave one of those "student on the street" reactions to the school newspaper that day...you know the ones where they ask a bunch of people a question, and they run 4 of the answers, each with a photo? So, they were taking my picture for it, and I guess I smiled sort of automatically, the way you do when someone points a camera at you. I noticed the camera person didn't seem to want to take the picture of me, and I didn't know why, but finally he did. Later, my dad saw the paper and laughed at me, cause there I was, grinning like an idiot while being quoted about the tragedy. I'm such a moron.

[Marsilia]

It was a snow day, so my sister and my mom and I were at the house. I was really excited to see it, because I really wanted to be an astronaut at that point (Maybe, I figured that the next logical step from taking a teacher was taking an elementary school class). I remember being almost on top of the TV and being absolutely hysterical when it happened. My sister, who was two years younger and didn't get it, kept asking my mom what was wrong with me.

[anyrose]

from my desk, I could see thru to the other side of the next room over. They had the TV on, and it was in my direct line of site, but too far for me to hear anything. I saw the odd looking smoke trail and thought "that doesn't look right", then I saw one of the managers wobble as if she was going to faint. Someone brought her a chair. Then the news filtered in to our part of the office. Very numbing. Both rooms were quiet, but for the clicking of keyboards, for about an hour.

[artifex]

I was in fifth grade. We didn't watch it happen, but we heard about it. What I really remember was that I had music class that day, and one of the boys made some stupid joking comment about the explosion; the music teacher, normally a fairly laid-back woman, went off on him. I think I was almost as shocked by the fury in her voice as by what happened.

[CatInASuit]

I don't really remember it happening. The first I heard of it was on the news later that evening