The Louisville Courier-Journal posted a home video of the Challenger disaster from 24 years ago. The man who recorded the video, Jack Moss, recently died and bequeathed the video to Louisville’s Space Exploration Archive.
The Challenger launch was the first space launch I ever watched. I was home sick from school, but I wanted to watch it because Christa McAuliffe, the teacher on board, was from New Hampshire, which practically made her a neighbor to me in Maine. When the plume of smoke captured here happened on national TV, I thought it was the space shuttle going into hyperdrive or something sci-fi like that. Moss’s confusion at the beginning of this tape, his doubts about whether that was supposed to happen or not, reminded me of what it was like right then.
leek, you owe me a beer or something. Just watched the video with my husband, and damn, that was depressing. Oh well.
My parents are in Florida now because my dad has always wanted to see the space shuttle launch. So, hopefully everything goes off okay on the 7th.
Oh crap, Julie. I’m sorry! I didn’t think you would find it that bad.
No worries — I almost never listen to myself when I think, I shouldn’t watch that or I shouldn’t look at that picture. And then I almost always regret it. Case in point: pretty much everything related to 9/11 (which you’re right, is definitely more horrifying).