This is in stark contrast to my reaction to the more recent Shuttle Columbia disaster. I cried when I saw the newspaper the next day.

There are many defining moments in history. My stepson has only sketchy recall of 9/11. He was only 7. He was just mad that recess and his favorite TV shows were all canceled that day. Now, it’s but an indistinct memory and (*groan*) yet another thing to remember for history class.

They had reason to think the crew might have survived. “Had there been a true explosion, the entire shuttle would have been instantly destroyed, killing the crew at that moment. The more robustly constructed crew cabin and SRBs survived the breakup of the launch vehicle; while the SRBs were subsequently detonated remotely, the detached cabin continued along a ballistic trajectory, and was observed exiting the cloud of gases at T+75.237.”

Likely, they died at the moment of impact with the ocean, NOT at the breakup. “During vehicle breakup, the robustly constructed crew cabin detached in one piece and slowly tumbled. NASA estimated separation forces at about 12 to 20 times the force of gravity (g) very briefly; however, within two seconds, the forces on the cabin had already dropped to below 4 g, and within ten seconds the cabin was in free fall. These forces were likely insufficient to cause major injury. At least some of the astronauts were likely alive and briefly conscious after the breakup, because three of the four Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAPs) on the flight deck were found to have been activated. Investigators found their remaining unused air supply roughly consistent with the expected consumption during the 2 minute 45 second post-breakup trajectory. Whether the astronauts remained conscious long after the breakup is unknown, and largely depends on whether the detached crew cabin maintained pressure integrity. If it did not, time of useful consciousness at that altitude is just a few seconds; the PEAPs supplied only unpressurized air, and hence would not have helped the crew to retain consciousness. The crew cabin hit the ocean surface at roughly 334 km/h (207 mph), causing an instantaneous deceleration of over 200 g, far beyond the structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels.”

(Interestingly, I recently learned that there has not been 1 case of a commercial airplane surviving a crash landing in the ocean. The force of hitting the water appears to be the problem here too)

I saved the next day’s newspaper and found it again when going through boxes last year. I had saved it because I recalled seeing my grandfather’s newspaper from when the RMS Titanic sank.

Couldn’t have been. I was still in school, in Texas and Pacific Time is 2 hours behind central. (In fact I was pulled out of gym when the Challenger exploded)

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster says 11:39 am EST (so 10:39a my time, 8:39am Pacific time…)

I don’t recall anything about “thinking they might survive” or feeling any more cynical after this, although I did collect all the Houston Chronicles for a while. I thought this was the end of the space program.