For my parents generation this question is usually completed with "JFK was shot." Everyone old enough to know what was going on can remember. For my generation, the question is "Where were you when Challenger exploded?" On January, 28th, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after take-off of its 10th mission, killing all seven crew members aboard.
My answer: The library at Dodd Junior High school in Cheshire, CT. What made this mission unusual was also the reason that so many people were watching. Christa McAuliffe (back row, second from left), a high school teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, was aboard the mission as part of NASA's Teacher in Space Project.
Until that day, space travel was something very exciting and romantic to most kids like me; not dangerous at all. (We didn't know about Apollo 13 until the Tom Hanks movie came out.) We all imagined that when we were weren't too much older, we, too, would get to go into space. The Challenger disaster changed all that. Not only did NASA lose a lot of funding, but it forced us to realize that these romantic dreams were, for the most part, just dreams. I hope that the space program is able to return to its former glory, so that my children are able to entertain such romantic dreams as their father had before this day in 1986.
Thanks,
Matt
P.S. If you're part of my generation, or even if you weren't, but still remember. Please post a comment and let me know where you were when... Thanks!
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