![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
28 January 1986, Twenty-One Years Already?
Can it really have been twenty one years? Shuttle launches had become old enough that we did not get excused from our classes. There wasn't even anything official said about the launch until the principal came on the PA to tell us what had happened.
I cannot remember now whether we were in English, or if it was the second half of my half-hearted attempt at French (I really shouldn't have tried French then, the only reason I was interested was that my Sister had taken French. I should have gone for Spanish). Whichever class it was, it was over as soon as the announcement was made. I can remember feeling annoyed when the teacher told us to write letters to the families. What the hell was I going to say? I've never been good at finding the words to say in that kind of situation, even after time to recover. Sorry your family members are dead? I suppose simply knowing others out there are sharing in the grief can help, but I don't know if what we wrote that day ever was sent anywhere.
Challenger was my introduction to dark bitter humor. My introduction to the idea that humor could be a defense and not just an amusement. If you were old enough to tell jokes then you probably remember them. Some of them were resurrected for Columbia.
Challenger was also the first time a memorial service truly had a connection for me. The next year on the 28th we had first period shortened and collected around the flagpole. There was a short speech, nothing overdone just a remember of why we were there and the names of those who had died. Then at 39 minutes past the hour we stopped for 73 seconds of silence after which someone from the school band played taps. Before this any such even was simply a history lesson, something that had occurred outside my lifetime.
At wasn't until I was an adult that I learned just how awful the loss of Challenger really was. It did not have to happen. Warning was given, NASA was advised not to hold the launch until there had been time for the temperature to rise. Would the o-rings still have failed? We won't know because the response was not, "What do we need to do," but, "Are you willing to stake your jobs on it." The engineers held out for a time, but in the end their warning was rejected.
Twenty-one years. It just doesn't feel like it could have really been that long.
I cannot remember now whether we were in English, or if it was the second half of my half-hearted attempt at French (I really shouldn't have tried French then, the only reason I was interested was that my Sister had taken French. I should have gone for Spanish). Whichever class it was, it was over as soon as the announcement was made. I can remember feeling annoyed when the teacher told us to write letters to the families. What the hell was I going to say? I've never been good at finding the words to say in that kind of situation, even after time to recover. Sorry your family members are dead? I suppose simply knowing others out there are sharing in the grief can help, but I don't know if what we wrote that day ever was sent anywhere.
Challenger was my introduction to dark bitter humor. My introduction to the idea that humor could be a defense and not just an amusement. If you were old enough to tell jokes then you probably remember them. Some of them were resurrected for Columbia.
Challenger was also the first time a memorial service truly had a connection for me. The next year on the 28th we had first period shortened and collected around the flagpole. There was a short speech, nothing overdone just a remember of why we were there and the names of those who had died. Then at 39 minutes past the hour we stopped for 73 seconds of silence after which someone from the school band played taps. Before this any such even was simply a history lesson, something that had occurred outside my lifetime.
At wasn't until I was an adult that I learned just how awful the loss of Challenger really was. It did not have to happen. Warning was given, NASA was advised not to hold the launch until there had been time for the temperature to rise. Would the o-rings still have failed? We won't know because the response was not, "What do we need to do," but, "Are you willing to stake your jobs on it." The engineers held out for a time, but in the end their warning was rejected.
Twenty-one years. It just doesn't feel like it could have really been that long.
no subject
We didn't write letters, I don't think. There was a brief memorial I am sure but I don't remember that either. Our school produced Col. Terrance Hendricks who commanded multiple shuttle missions after Challanger. As you can imagine, space flight is one of our communities big things.