The Challenger disaster was 30 years ago today

Yep, was watching it live on TV.

God speed to the crew.

Was before my time but I was watching the Columbia return

Brave people

From rural South Carolina and a product of segregated South Carolina public schools and then went to MIT where he received a PhD.

He is still celebrated down here.

Quite possibly the worst part of it all is that there's a lot of evidence that most if not all of the crew were still alive until they hit the water.

Watched it in on TV my dorm room. When my roommate and I left to walk to class, in that pre-Internet era, we told other students about it.

I remember their reactions were like you told them someone they knew had died. It really affected people.

Sad day indeed.

About a week before, we had been visited by another teacher who made it as an astronaut, but didn't get the chance to go up.

Back in the day, the school had one TV on a cart, and the science teacher had it in her classroom, and since we didn't have science until the afternoon, we didn't get to see it. But I remember sitting in another class when a teacher burst in crying telling us the news.

As a child born post-JFK, this was comparable to that event. Since then, 9/11 far surpassed it in coverage, and the second shuttle disaster's media coverage paled in comparison to the 1986 event.

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From rural South Carolina and a product of segregated South Carolina public schools and then went to MIT where he received a PhD.

He is still celebrated down here.

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Had a house in Clear Lake, Tx. I got to know his wife a little bit as I lived in the neighborhood, but was after the incident.

I was in 5th grade, we were watching it live in class when it blew. The entire class got quiet, but the teachers started freaking out...

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Like many other kids at the time, we were watching it live in school.

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Kindergarten... the ol' TV on a cart.