Friday, January 28, 2011

Do you remember where you were when...,

at 10:38am CST, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its mission?


I do...

As a senior, I was sitting in my Majority at 18 class at Burnsville Sr. High in Burnsville, MN. I remember a teacher coming into our classroom in tears...telling our teacher to turn on the television.

It's one of those events that forever stay with you. Like JFK and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations were for my parents and grandparents.

It's the reason that I hold my breathe and pray during each launch of a shuttle.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one event would shape my adult life. While I'm not working in the space industry, I am connected to it through my husband and his job. My husband works on the Internation Space Station Program, so we have an even more vested interest in the shuttle launches. That's what brought us to North Alabama in 1990. We've had the privilege of being VIP guests at KSC for the night launch of the first U.S. piece of the ISS in 1998. The shuttle program has been a vital part of the ISS program and I really hate to see them retire without a viable alternative in place.


May we always remember those who sacrificed their lives so that we may continue our space exploration.

3 comments:

saintseester said...

I was in Houston that day.

azn8tive said...

Such a sad day! I still find it difficult to watch the footage of it.

Michelle said...

I was in my high school French class and a fellow student came in and told us what had happened. Such a shocking moment in history.