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Challenger: 25 years later, a still painful wound

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I remember well where I was when Challenger exploded. I was sitting in my 4th grade classroom when the PE teacher came in. When my teacher asked her about the space shuttle (because of McAuliffe), she just started crying and said, "It blew up."

It's sad that things like this happen, but many lessons have been learned because of this tragedy. Humans are not perfect, and there will be mistakes in judgement and technology. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying to go further, explore more places.

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I remember where I was also. The woman from the Cash Management came to the accounting department and announced it. Sad day all around.

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A very well-written story. Thank you, Japan Times, for posting it.

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I remember watching it live on TV.

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for an insider's point of view, read Feynman's memories. a bit technical, but lots of interesting stuff. He was the scientist in the panel that evaluated the causes of the accident, and he proved the O-ring fault using a glass of ice water

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I just came back to my apartment from class during my second year in college and saw the explosion on television. That day and 9/11 were both unforgettable because of the shock of the events. Reagan's speech was short and beautiful.

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Can't forget the look on McAuliffe's father's face as he slowly realized what was happening. An unimaginable thing to go through for all the families involved, but to go through it with TV cameras focused on you...

Poor guy died a few years later too, and from some articles it sounds like he was pretty much shattered by the loss in his final years.

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for an insider's point of view, read Feynman's memories

I was going to mention them, and I'm glad someone did.

The lesson that stuck for me was the tremendous disparity in perceptions between NASA management and NASA engineers and the resulting tensions from that disparity. The average NASA manager put the odds of a catastrophic failure at something like 1:200 while the engineers put the odds of launching in such cold conditions at around 1:25.

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the engineers put the odds of launching in such cold conditions at around 1:25.

sorry, the above should read "the engineers put the odds of a failure as a result of launching in such cold conditions at around 1:25."

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This event happen two years before I was born so this tragedy did not affect me.....

However, I watched the news when Columbia blew up as it was returning to Earth in 2003.....

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25 years already? wow.

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I remember one of the quieter students coming into philosophy class late, announcing the news of the disaster in a very upset voice, and my prof smiling creepily, and then his eagerness to get into the lesson; kind of like - 'you'll get over it, and your bourgeois patriotism.'

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I don't remember exactly where I was the precise moment when it happened, but I was not in class, I remember that. I saw it on the news that night -- though in retrospect the sombre mood of those I saw on the street on my way home said a lot.

This wasn't just a wound to NASA or the American people, it was a tragedy that let us all know how fragile our existence can be, and how utterly devastating the errors, despite how hard we push forward. Wow... 25 years passes quickly. We don't have so much innocent tragedy like that any more.

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I was in grade school and a teacher came in and made the announcement. Thinking back, it kind of makes me wonder why they needed to tell kids that young....

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Elementary school for me too, and I had read books like Cosmos and was really interested; a teacher came in the room and told us what had happened.

I think Feynman's second book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" is the one that has the discussion of his role in the Challenger investigation. He died just a few yars after this accident, too; 1988.

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"Waco. Oklahoma City. Columbine. 9/11. Shuttle Columbia. Katrina. Virginia Tech. And now, Tucson."

"With so much carnage, another space catastrophe would not have the same impact as Challenger, Karioth noted. “We’re used to everybody dying now,” she said. "

Why does gratuitous America-bashing pass for news?

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