Challenger: 25 Years Later

Twenty-five years ago today, the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed during launch in front of a world wide television audience. For people of my generation, the Challenger disaster is a "Where were you?" moment. Like the Kennedy assassination for our parents, or 9/11 for our children, that day in January, 25 years ago, was perhaps the first time we experienced a common loss with the rest of the world. More than just the loss of those seven brave individuals that stepped on the launch platform that morning, we all lost a bit of innocence that day.

I remember sitting in the floor of my bedroom that morning. It was a school day here in Virginia, but as is likely to happen in late January, we were snowed in. The shuttle launches were always news back in those days, but with Teacher In Space Christa McCauliffe on board, they interrupted the regularly scheduled network broadcast to cover the launch. For most of the time it was just background noise. My friends and I were playing Scrabble and having a blast. I had just landed a triple word score and was in the middle of more than just a little gloating when we all heard, "We have a major malfunction."

By the time those words were spoken, the bulk of the Shuttle Challenger had disintegrated. We turned to the television screen to see what was going on. All that was left of our nation's spacecraft was the two solid rocket boosters, twisting up into the atmosphere. It wasn't until moments later during a replay that we actually saw the "fireball" that engulfed the shuttle. I remember being confused. "How could something like this happen?' I asked. As the newscasters replayed the video over and over, speculating as to the cause and what exactly we were seeing on our screens, we stayed glued to the broadcast. The crew identities and biographies soon followed and my confusion was quickly replaced by a deep sense of loss. I felt for their families. They were just doing their job and something entirely unfathomable had happened.

As we returned to school and in the months that followed, that day immediately made it's way into the small talk lineup. After your weekend plans, or who you were talking to, everyone asked about the Challenger broadcast. "Where were you?" "Can you believe it?" Soon we were all engaged in actively mourning a group of people we didn't even know. In the end, I believe we were mourning the loss of our invincibility as individuals and as a country.

For most adolescents, loss is something that happens to older people. Some of us had lost a grandparent or even two, but few of us had lost a parent, and almost none of us had lost a friend. In some ways, that's what the loss felt like. It felt as though we had lost someone close to us. But in each other we had companionship and a shared understanding for what we were going through. Even if we didn't hang out together after school, or have the same class schedule, we all shared in the tragedy. Hard to say if we were all changed for the better, but we were definitely changed. For our country, a successful space program was a tremendous testament to America and its citizens. But on that morning in January, all that changed, and we all felt a little bit of that.

It was nearly three years before the Space Shuttle lifted off again. Numerous Q&A sessions, informal and formal investigations, and thousands of hours of news coverage passed the months between the launches. Some even saw the disaster as the end of space travel entirely. But we did fly again. The Space Shuttle Discovery took to the air in September of 1988 beginning 19 years of uninterrupted shuttle flights. We were back in the space, but those of us that were around back then would never be the same.