I was in first grade at James S Evans elementary school in Wappingers Falls NY. We were all in the cafeteria watching as the first teacher was set to go into space and then it happened. It was pretty horrifying to see and all I remember was silence after the explosion. It was the first major catastrophe I remember living through. Hard to believe it’s been 34 years.


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I skipped school that day and was home watching it live on tv at home. I remember being in awe at how most of the observers on the ground didn't realize what happened and were still cheering. So sad.

Funny how you remember where you were for certain events.
Challenger-in VF-31 ready room listening to CO, launch on TV.
Columbia-getting car washed..watching TV in lobby.
Kennedy assassination-walking across cross walk in Azores(father in USAF) with my mother..guy walking the other way with transistor radio..stops and shouts..
Yup, I'm old-:)

9/11..everybody remembers where they were for that one.

I was one week into the second semester of my senior year in college. As an aeronautical engineering student, I knew there was a shuttle launch that morning. I was in class with one of my roommates when the tragedy occurred. We walked back to our apartment to find the rest of our roommates glued to the TV watching the midday news. We were all stunned.

I knew pretty quickly that this was both a watershed moment for my generation and a firm reminder that my chosen career had severe consequences for poor decisions. Three decades later, I regularly remind young engineers that their design, manufacturing, and sustainment decisions can have life changing effects.

Greg

I was in 7th grade at the time. We were not watching live. There was simply an announcement over the PA system.

After Challenger I went to Space Camp and then in college took aerospace and mechanical engineering (during the downturn in the aerospace industry in the early 90s). During my college days I flew on the vomit comet for a student experiment on the ignition and combustion of metals in microgravity. After college I got a job at Hughes in L.A. (same company that Greg Jarvis worked for before he became a Payload Specialist on Challenger).

Based on college friends and co-workers over the years, a lot of us wound up working in the industry in some form because of Challenger.

I was walking to class past the AV lab and they had the launch playing on a television so we stopped to watch as my home room teacher was in the final 10 or 12 teachers to be picked from to be on that launch. Fortunately he didn’t make the final cut, the role call the next morning was very somber as well.
Another surreal moment in life where you’ll never forget that moment.