Challenger was destroyed live on television, in front of millions of schoolchildren watching the first teacher go into space. We learned many lessons from that event. Most of them are wrong.
As I noted yesterday, on the Apollo 1 anniversary, I had a piece about the tragic space anniversaries that cluster around the end of January a year ago.
I remember that morning in part because I was trying to watch the launch but couldn’t find a morning news program that was showing it — Sacramento had only just granted a cable franchise, and even at that I was living in a place that didn’t have it yet.
I was clicking around disbelieving that the launch was being ignored, and then suddenly NBC cut away from “The Today Show” with a long shot of something tumbling earthward and at first no audio.
It was almost as jarring as if I actually had seen the shuttle explode live.
I can’t believe it was that long ago.
The world was a different place then.
I was in Orlando that cold morning, attending a class on the east side of town. My fiance (now wife) called me with the news.
It was a long night at my employer: The Orlando Sentinel.
…the day was made even worse by that smoke trail that lingered in the sky. It looked like a big question mark against that brilliant blue sky background..
Sad day, indeed….