Why is Challenger and not Columbia such a core Gen X memory?
Posted by space_god_7191@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 422 comments
Both were tragic and terrifying. Why is Challenger discussed as such a core Gen X memory and not Columbia?
TOoSmOotH513@reddit
We had a mini assembly where we were in the common area sitting crisscross applesauce with TVs on carts. The teachers didn't know what to do or say so we just went back to class like nothing happened. I remember thinking maybe they had parachutes or something and they would find them. Sort of the rub some dirt on it approach to childhood trauma presented live on TV. Columbia, although tragic, just didn't hit the same.
Tired_o_Mods_BS@reddit
We stopped what we were doing and watched the launch in our class (7th grade for me). It was almost as shocking as the time they had us watch Watership Down in 4th grade.
Columbia was something that happened on the news. Big difference in exposure levels.
Razor_Paw@reddit
By the time Columbia came around we had been there and done that. Kind of like Columbine
emryldmyst@reddit
They were years apart
Seagrave63@reddit
We saw one explode live on TV. The other one came down and was initially unknown as a disaster. Tok a bit to determine what it was. I have read books on both. Horrible tragedies.
mabhatter@reddit
Columbia broke up on re-entry. So it was a lot more routine and a lot less covered. Like you said, it wasn't immediately clear what happened.
As far as GenX, we were all busy adults when Columbia happened. Most people didn't really follow the shuttles at that point because they were such routine launches without any excitement around them.
tunaman808@reddit
Oooooookaaaaayyyy. Whatever you say, champ.
tunaman808@reddit
??? I was a high school kid when Challenger blew up; I was in my 30s when Columbia happened.
TweeksTurbos@reddit
The hype was real
Aromatic_Revolution4@reddit
A lot of us had teachers who had hyped Sally Ride (the teacher) going into space so there was a don't miss it buzz about the launch.
Thousands of TV carts were rolled into classrooms so we could watch it live. And together we all watched Challenger explode and people die in real time. That leaves a mark.
Columbia happened when most of us were adults at work. And it wasn't the first time we saw a shuttle explode.
That doesn't make Columbia any less tragic, it just makes it less shocking to most GenXers.
whitebean@reddit
Christa McAuliffe was the teacher on Challenger. Sally Ride was the first female American in space. But yes, this, it was partly our age, and partly because our teachers and media hyped up the first teacher in space and it happened while we were at school.
Aromatic_Revolution4@reddit
Oh gosh, that's right - thanks for the correction 👍
VioletaBlueberry@reddit
They had a competition to pick the teacher. My 3rd grade teacher was a top ten finalist. We KNEW a lot about the whole process because we went through it with her. I think that made it a lot more real.
Business_Coyote_5496@reddit
Because everyone was in school watching the Challenger blow up.
Desert_Sox@reddit
well - Christa McAuliffe was a teacher at my high school. And she was the teacher on the space shuttle who was going to conduct lessons from space
Everyone in my high school was watching the launch from the cafeteria or the auditorium or in some cases tvs in classes. It was my lunch period so I saw it from there.
We weren't alone - a lot of schools were doing similar. It was traumatic
onecogmind@reddit
Because Christa McAuliffe was one of the people on the Challenger. Around that time many GenX kids were well aware of the Teacher in Space program. It was a big deal, thousands of teachers from many schools applied. One teacher from my district was one of the candidates that made it far. As a result, most schools at the time watched the launch live on TV's in the classrooms.... so memory is strong.. seeing it happen among our classmates, watching our teachers react in horror and then realizing how they are going to address a class full of kids that just experienced something tragic and live....
HandAccomplished6285@reddit
I grew up in the shadow of Johnson Space Center and still live within 20 miles of it, so both of them are core memories for me. It is pretty common to know the astronauts when you live here. While I did not know any of the ones lost, on of the Columbia astronaut’s kid was in the same soccer league as my oldest son. On a much brighter note, my grandson took a picture with Victor Glover in a coffee shop on NASA Road 1 when he was 3 months old.
Coldfinger42@reddit
For some reason, I interpreted that to mean that it was Victor Glover who was 3 months old at the time. I had a hard time with that, trying to philosophize it, but then my brain kicked in
WRXRated@reddit
I saw Challenger explode live over lunch time in grade 4.
I read about Columbia in my 30's in between snowboard runs.
war_m0nger69@reddit
My core memory of Columbia is its first flight.
IntelligentAge211@reddit
Kid vs adult perspective.....
pickyvegan@reddit
We watched the Challenger explode live on TV while sitting in classrooms where many of our teachers literally applied to be on that shuttle. It just hit closer to home.
Aromatic-Magician-72@reddit
This is exactly why. I was sitting in German class in HS. Will never forget it.
DarklyDominatingDocs@reddit
Legit. I was in middle school located super close to Mission Control. My favorite teacher had applied. I was into astronauts and the space program like other kids are into sports. Watching that happen was f'ing traumatic.
NopeThisTrope@reddit
I think most of us watched it happen live in our classroom and witnessed adults scramble to turn it off quickly.
emcee-666@reddit
Because there was a country wide contest to be the school teacher who got to go, and every kid knew a teacher that applied but didn’t get it but was excited a teacher got to go. Everybody knew the teachers name, no one knew any of the other astronauts.
Pinkbeans1@reddit
I think my school had at least 2 teachers make it past the first round of whatever the process was. It was a massive deal. Everyone was invested in that shuttle flight.
domino_427@reddit
there was a teacher on challenger, so many students watched it in school. people in central florida could see it outside, where my class was gathered. after that i refused to watch any more, and actually that liftoff this month? last month? is the first I've gone outside or watched online since 86. probly other kids were the same as me
comp21@reddit
I lived 30 miles south of CC and watched it while outside at recess. I can remember it in vivid detail and I'm 48 now.
domino_427@reddit
Same! But I was in Orlando. Can feel the chain link fence I was holding and see my teacher's face.
sillvrdollr@reddit
Yes, there were a lot of students watching it live in classrooms. The teachers probably had very human reactions to it, which might've been a big surprise for younger kids.
SteelerNation587543@reddit
Because the Challenger was first, and early in the Shuttle program, and it was the first publicly visible failure of the US space program. The Apollo 1 fire was of course a huge tragedy, but back then everyone understood the risks and it happened quietly. The Challenger was a public, heavily hyped launch that had cameras on it.
bjb8@reddit
I would say because we were kids at the time of Challenger, and adults for Columbia. Plus the fact that Challenger was such a hyped launch, often being shown in schools.
Otherwise_Object_446@reddit
It was so hyped up and we were so young. I was in Canada and I came home for lunch and my mother greeted me at the front door to tell me something terrible had happened. I thought my Dad had died.
hysteria110176@reddit
Didn’t watch Challenger live but will never forget my 4th grade teacher sobbing in the hallway after hearing the news. And of course the news was constantly showing clips that night and for days / weeks after. My parents had subscriptions to all the big magazines and I voraciously read every article.
I also remember gathering in assembly when the next launch happened. The tension in the room was palpable and I was relieved when everything went smoothly.
I watched Columbia explode live that Saturday morning in 2003 with my mom. Both impacted me.
CommunicationHappy20@reddit
We sat and watched it blow up in real time on the tv on the cart in the multi. Sitting on the floor, super excited a teacher was going to space then bam! Millions of children got a hard lesson on violent death.
Life-Improvement-886@reddit
For me personally, I was in the Navy. We were in port Charleston, SC. I remember watching the Challenger take off and explosion. My ship, USS Wainwright and many others were ordered underway to make best speed for recovery operations. I was overseas for the Challenger Disaster so somewhat “removed”..
MadPiglet42@reddit
Challenger had a civilian teacher on board and it was A Whole Thing. It was HYPED in ways previous Shuttle missions hadn't been.
And for me, one of the astronauts was from my local area so there was even more hype.
We watched it live. And at the time, many schools didn't have the knowledge or resources to break it down and support kids and staff in the ways we probably [definitely] needed to be supported after having seen that.
Also, a lot of GenX were already adults by the time Columbia happened. We'd already been through rhing like the OKC bombing, Columbine, and 9/11. A Space Shuttle breaking up on re-entry? Sad, yes, but...
Wascally_Badger@reddit
When the Challenger launched they made such a big deal out of it at my middle school that they wheeled a tv into my classroom and had us watch it live. Kids started to applaud when it blew up because it took us a few mi utes to process exactly what happened.
AutVincere72@reddit
Do not forget that people were bored with the space shuttle. That is what killed the Apollo missions early. So NASA PR decided to put the first teacher in space, had all the schools watch it, and then a new generation would drive public opinion forward on funding NASA space exploration. It backfired literally.
Wascally_Badger@reddit
You're right. The novelty wore off by the time Challenger was set to launch. I also remember the big "we've got to get kids more interested in space exploration" push back in the mid 80s.
Upbeat_Call4935@reddit
Challenger happened when millions of kids were watching live on TV in school because of Christa McAuliffe. It was only the 25th flight of the Space Shuttle fleet. It was still new.
Columbia happened on a Saturday after the shuttle had been flying for over 20 years.
FriedRamen13@reddit
Challenger was the first Space Shuttle tragedy and hit really hard. Columbia also happened in 2003 when we were adults and presumably better equipped to deal with tragedy.
denzien@reddit
Because the Challenger happened in our formative years and Columbia was as an adult?
lemotomato21@reddit
I think this is the answer.
MariaInconnu@reddit
One of the people on Challenger, if I recall, was a school teacher. There was some kind of competition?
I was not particularly interested in it at the time. I was not one of the kids who chose to watch the live footage.
...but I clearly remember my classmate who was watching (we'd been given the option to do so) racing into our classroom to say that Challenger had exploded, and all of us running to the TV room.
Oriencor@reddit
My science teacher was in the running for it.
dyverthesprit@reddit
Yes, Christie McAuliffe (spelling) was the teacher if I remember correctly
starship7201u@reddit
The Mission: In 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced the Teacher in Space Project to inspire students, honor teachers, and foster interest in space exploration.
Christa McAuliffe (1948–1986) was a Concord, New Hampshire high school social studies teacher selected from over 11,000 applicants to be the first "Teacher in Space". As part of NASA’s 1985–1986 project to launch a civilian, she trained to conduct lessons in orbit, aiming to inspire students.
Lightnenseed@reddit
Challenger happened while we were in school. We didn't watch it in any of my classes but some did and the news soon broke out and then everyone was wanting to watch the news about it. It was horrifying.
Columbia was on a Saturday and I think most of Gen X were adults at that point. It seemed the news on that shuttle was much quieter, maybe that's not the best way to put it. But I do remember watching the news that morning.
Baymavision@reddit
Columbia happened as adults and after 9/11 and anthrax and, for those of us in the DC area, the sniper. It, like the sniper, may just be a local trauma thing.
sabreus@reddit
I think it’s kinda local, because I remember it, but I wasn’t bothered as much
moccasinsfan@reddit
We watched it happen live on TV. Many of us watched it in our school classrooms surrounded by peers.
Columbia reentry was on a Saturday. Many people were still asleep. Unlike Challenger, it wasn't being covered live and even if it were, you couldn't have seen the destruction of the spacecraft because it was high in the atmosphere. At best you would have seen some debris raining down but it wouldn't have been nearly as visually impactful as seeing the Challenger explosion in real time.
razer742@reddit
Mostly because a lot of us were in school watching it when it happened.
UrbanSurfDragon@reddit
Why is 9/11 such a memory and not the grandeur of the twin towers skyline?
Practicality_Issue@reddit
Trauma sticks.
Columbia didn’t leave my mind though. The explosion shook my house. I literally thought a truck had swerved off the road and hit the house. I was sitting in my truck with the radio on when I heard the news.
But challenger was when we were kids. I couldn’t watch any of the Artemis stuff when it was happening for the same reason I don’t like visiting people I love in the hospital. I wrongly think that if I visit, they’ll definitely die. If I watch, the vehicle will explode.
Zaphodblacksdad@reddit
It was my alchoholic mom's first day in a mental institution in North Texas for rehab. She went in as an alcholic, came out an alcholic and a smoker. I will forever associate the two, I guess.
BobasPett@reddit
I was protesting plans for war when Columbia broke apart. Very different from being in school.
Life-Wealth-3399@reddit
It was because we watched it happen in real time, in school. It also had a bigger impact because for the first time a non astronaut was on a nasa mission.
The_Se7enthsign@reddit
We watched it in school, in real time, from liftoff to explosion. And then class resumed. That’s not a meme. That’s how it really went down for most of us.
For Columbia, I was already an adult. It was already coming down in pieces. Also, it was post 9/11 so we had already seen a lot of shit at that point.
StonedGhoster@reddit
My grandparents were visiting during Columbia's reentry and I always had the news on, but we were in the kitchen at the time. The announcer said they'd lost radio contact with the crew and I remembered that that happens in reentry, so I said "That's supposed to happen," and carried on. Then for some reason I went into the living room to see video of the ship breaking apart and streaking across the sky. I said, "Well, THAT's not supposed to happen." To be honest, I don't remember much else about it. I assume we watched more coverage of the event but I can't recall anything more. Now, the Challenger...yeah. That was a bigger deal because I was like six and it was a teacher going up and teachers were my whole world at that point. They rolled the TV cart in and everyone was so excited because, well, spaceship! It blew up, they turned off the TV, and we went about our day as if it didn't happen. Just watched people die and the adults pretended we didn't. That stuck with me.
GansNaval@reddit
Watching in real time and then they just rolled the tv out and didn't say a word about it. I was in grade 3. My parents never brought it up either.
NivekTheGreat1@reddit
Most all of us watched Challenger live on TV while we were in school and were young. The was a teacher onboard that just made it hit harder. That kind of stuff got scared in your memory. I can still close my eyes and remember it. That and 9/11 are the tragic memories of Gen X.
buffcleb@reddit
I was in fourth grade when Challenger exploded attending Catholic school. My teacher was very young and it may have been her first year teaching.
The school hallways were all decorated for the launch. We watched it live. They turned the TV off after, sent the entire school out to for a recess. When we came back in the decorations were down and they went on with the day.
After a week the first jokes about the explosion started in the playground. PG one that always stuck in my head was what does N.A.S.A stand for, need another seven astronauts.
Kind of makes it one of your core childhood memories when looking back.
k8freed@reddit
The N.A.S.A jokes were non-stop among my peers, and I still remember most of them. Where did they originate? Obviously, we had cultural memes and ideas that went viral before the internet, but it's interesting how 10-year-olds across the U.S. were processing the disaster through gallows humor.
buffcleb@reddit
Back then I remember the jokes after every major event. Pre-internet I have no idea how they traveled so fast.
Many-Role-4271@reddit
It was a bit different. We stood there outside looking up at the explosion (also 4th grade). Everyone at that school had parents that worked at KSC. The teachers rushed us inside once they sounded the air raid sirens because the boosters were still flying around uncontrolled. We sat in the classroom for about an hour before they put us on all buses and sent us home. We had met all the astronauts a few weeks before. My father's coworker had a heart attack and died. The schools were closed for nearly 2 weeks and then we had all these counselors and support people there. It was more somber and if people told jokes they were sent to the dean. This hit harder for us given the live event and the ties of the community. My boy scout troop helped build the memorial at the river front park. The bench with our troop info is still there, but they have since built a bigger one across the road. Every time I take my kids through the visitor center, they ask about it and we go through the memorial hall in the Atlantis building. This is probably one of the most defining moments of my life. That and 9/11 as I was in the service when that happened. But watching 7 people die in a tragic explosion live is pretty difficult for a 4th grader to process.
Many-Role-4271@reddit
I was watching it live outside my school. My father worked at KSC.
eventhorizon3140@reddit
Lots of us were kids who watched it happen at school because of the attention of 1. It being the space shuttle and it was the 80s when it was new and 2. Christa McAuliffe was on board as the first civilian astronaut.
GogDog@reddit
In my case, I saw it with my own eyes.
I was in kindergarten in central Florida when Challenger blew up. We would always go outside and see the shuttles go up. You could see them for miles. I have strong memories of the teachers panicking, lots of crying. And them not telling us what happened and then my mom having to explain it when she picked me up.
zariously@reddit
I was driving from Austin to Dallas in ‘03 when Columbia broke up on reentry. It was a Saturday. I remember being passed by lots of emergency vehicles. When I stopped in Waco, I met some people who said they saw pieces of the spacecraft fall from the sky.
Spirited_Ad_1396@reddit
Challenger had the first teacher in space, so schools everywhere at all levels rolled in their TVs on a cart to watch live.
TheJokersChild@reddit
This. And a lot of kids were stunned by the fact that that could have been their teacher up there instead of Ms. McAuliffe. Incredible amount of complex emotions that day.
foxyfree@reddit
Gen X were very young when Challenger exploded in 1986 (I was 13) and most of us watched it live at school. The media and schools hyped it up for months because of the school teacher onboard. At my school, the teacher took the whole class to the library where they had dragged in a couple of TVs on those rolling carts. Tree he explosion was really shocking, and as we watched it live, it made a deep impression. The teachers were crying.
The Columbine shooting happened in 1999 when we were adults, out of school, working and paying bills. Only the very youngest born 1980 Gen X were still teenagers, barely. It was awful but probably made a much deeper impression on Millennials and those younger, who were still in school, and would start doing active shooter drills after that.
Few-Honeydew2676@reddit
No all of us were kids when Challenger exploded. I was 21 and at work.
StopCallingMeGeorge@reddit
Gen X began in 1965. I was 23 and working when Challenger happened. It still hit hard, but it was a different experience.
Us older Gen X'ers have had a much different life experience than the younger crew. I could legally drink at 18. I became sexually active before AIDS. Punk & New Wave music hit in my teen years. It doesn't make us better, but it does make us different.
Iam-WinstonSmith@reddit
Nobody is talking about Columbine why are you?
D0ublespeak@reddit
You couldn't figure out the obvious mistake yourself?
Daytonewheel@reddit
It’s a typical eye to brain error. Probably read it too fast and saw Columbine instead of Columbia.
One-Earth9294@reddit
Yeah I saw that live in like 2nd grade. We grew up fast in those days lol.
TheRateBeerian@reddit
For me columbia is a stronger memory, specifically its debut launch in 1981 when i was 11, and i was totally psyched to watch it on tv, having grown up with only stories of apollo launches that i never got to see myself, not live. So when she broke up some 30 years later, i def thought about that day i watched her first liftoff.
medigapguy@reddit
Because we were in school at the time and because a teacher was on the ship, every school gathered us all around a TV to have us watch a teacher die.
Plus, we were all older at the time of Columbia, and unlike the Challenger, we now knew spaceships can blow up. So while tragic it wasn't an earth shattering shock to our systems.
dezertryder@reddit
Because the Challenger , we were 12 and not totally jaded by life yet and did not expect it. The Columbia, we were dealing with the fallout of 9/11 still in 2003,, so ……………………..we may have expected it.
Academic_Island_3183@reddit
Columbia is something I will never forget, I was at the SLF that morning talking with Ilia's (sp) daughter when we got the news of the accident. She broke down bad and nasa police took the families away right after.
Jagmod770@reddit
Because it blew up while watching the broadcast in school
Pristine_Main_1224@reddit
So much pre-publicity surrounded the Challenger expedition because Christa McAuliffe was going to be the first teacher in space. She wasn’t an astronaut. She embodied that person in all our classrooms. She was going to teach us FROM SPACE. It was a big deal…and then we watched her and the astronauts be obliterated in seconds. For many of us it was our first “real life” death.
She was something good and positive in a world where Ryan White wasn’t allowed to go to school and the Satanists were hurting children and eating babies and the USSR was the enemy.
BellaFromSwitzerland@reddit
As someone who lived in the orbit of the USSR during this time, what was the story of satanists eating babies and do we know who started it ?
Pristine_Main_1224@reddit
Oh, Lord. Maybe they weren’t eating the babies, but the whole Satanic Panic thing started with a daycare. It was a horrible case, and the TV movie about it was called “Do You Know the Muffin Man?”
Some-Attitude8183@reddit
I was about to graduate with my aerospace engineering degree when Challenger happened - I almost took a job with Morton Thiokol (made the solid rocket boosters) - way more in the forefront of my mind than the re-entry disaster years later when I wasn’t working for a few years and while it was horrible, it didn’t have the impact that watching the Challanger break up on live tv did.
cropguru357@reddit
I didn’t see Challenger as a kid, but I do remember watching Columbia break up on TV. It was surreal.
If anyone is looking for a good book on it, check out Challenger by Adam Higgenbotham.
meandhimandthose2@reddit
I think it was because the school teacher was on board. Making it a thing that maybe was achievable for ordinary people.
9otto@reddit
Because there was a teacher on it, my school showed it live. That’s why. At least for my school.
xiphoid77@reddit
This is sad, but I actually don’t know anything about the Columbia. Had to google it. Challenger is a core memory from middle school.
EC_Stanton_1848@reddit
Up until the Challenger, our Space Program had always succeeded
or found a way to succeed (with Apollo 13).
This was Reagan's hubris to ignore the engineers so he could have something to talk about during his state of the union address.
Revolutionary-Pea576@reddit
Apollo I
EC_Stanton_1848@reddit
Maybe you're from an earlier generation than me . . .
You're not wrong, but that was not part of the popular consciousness in the late 1980's. (I had to look it up to even know what you were talking about).
Revolutionary-Pea576@reddit
I’m late Gen X but I watched The Right Stuff in the 80s.
Ceorl_Lounge@reddit
Yep didn't know about that until I became a huge space nerd.
overeducatedhick@reddit
Was the White House even in the decision tree?
Also, I took a required technical writing class in college in the 1990s. The engineers' memo about the seals was first reading assignment as an example of how badly-written technical documents can be unintelligible and lead to disastrous outcomes, even if the content is technically accurate.
Capital-Cheesecake67@reddit
Not really. Look up the Apollo 1 disaster. It almost ended the Apollo program.
MarcusAurelius68@reddit
Reagan? What did he have to do with launch constraints? Read Truth, Lies, and O-Rings by Allan J. McDonald.
trumptman@reddit
Columbia happened on reentry and I was awake and watching it real time. It was a slow unfolding tragedy where no one really quite understood what was happening until it was too late. My wife came downstairs and I was weeping on the couch. It was so early in the morning that I was the only one up.
Challenger was on liftoff and we all knew instantly what had happened.The actual explosion was something no one had ever seen before and it was devastating.
MarcusAurelius68@reddit
I turned on the TV that Saturday morning to watch news and a clip of the landing, and I agree, it unfolded slowly. One of the best videos I’ve seen on YouTube was done years later that followed the progression of the wing burn-through and sensor loss over the course of minutes.
Mugwumps_has_spoken@reddit
See, I watched Columbia real time as well. As soon as it went missing i knew . Probably that Gen-X trauma of Challenger. Like an "oh shit, it happened again"
CreatrixAnima@reddit
I watched Columbia in real time as well. I was at my parents house, and I went downstairs and said “the space shuttle has kind of gone missing.“ And my dad talked about how sometimes they have completely predictable and expected communication blackouts, and I had to explain that that was not what was happening. And then I remember hearing about a debris field that went for miles…
Many-Role-4271@reddit
Because my dad worked at KFC and I stood outside my school and watched it explode.
Tweezus96@reddit
Capital-Cheesecake67@reddit
We were children when Challenger exploded and there’s video of the whole incident. Columbia happened when we were adults. There wasn’t video of it exploding on video. Finally let’s not forget that Columbia happened post 9/11.
BonezOz@reddit
Challenger was one of a series of events that occurred during the mid to late 80's and they all seem to have started with the Challenger explosion, at least for my core memories.
First was the Challenger explosion in Jan of 1986, that most school children watched live on TV.
Second was the Chernobyl disaster in April of that same year.
Third, and this one probably only applies to myself, was the Whittier, CA earth in Nov of 1987, even though it was a medium sized earthquake it was by far the largest I had ever felt, and the damage it did was nuts, and was a talking point of the news for weeks.
Finally, everything cumulated in the fall of the Berlin Wall in Nov 1989, which was such a historic event, it may very well have been the catalyst that finally ended the cold war.
Andyman1973@reddit
Don’t forget the World Series game that was interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. That was a 6.9 on the Richter scale. It was October 17, 1989.
BonezOz@reddit
Unfortunately I didn't even know about that one. We had moved from Ventura to Missouri by then, and since we never watched baseball (strictly limited to the radio in the garage) we wouldn't have seen it. And considering we were in Missouri, it probably only got a passing mention on the nightly news.
Andyman1973@reddit
Wasn’t watching the game, at the time. Was living down in Barstow. I remember feeling the quake, and calling out asking if anyone in my family felt the quake too.
BonezOz@reddit
That was how it was with the Whittier one. I was putting my shoes on getting ready for school and thought my younger sister was shaking the couch. It wasn't until I stood up to berate her that I realised everything was still shaking.
Andyman1973@reddit
They’re kinda cool when they’re not being terrifying!
NotHomeOffice@reddit
I can remember being in the library in elementary school watching it live on the tube TV that gets wheeled around on the cart. I don't think I had a clue what was going on (thankfully) but recall the panicked teachers turning the TV right off and we all sat in quiet time.
Another poinient moment was hurricane Gloria. To me It felt like the whole world shut down for days. Remembering store fronts taping windows in X marks and putting boards up. Camping down in our basement listening to the transistor radio. Going outside when the eye hit to survey the damage with my dad and how eerie quiet it was.
Labcorgilab@reddit
You just blew my mind. I was a junior in high school for Challenger, watched it in class in disbelief. Chernobyl I remember well but just now realized it was a few months after Challenger. My friends were there in person for the fall of the Berlin Wall. I didn't put it all together as happening in that quick if succession until you just did.
BonezOz@reddit
The late 80's were a crazy time to be teenager, There were so many historical events that our teachers loved bringing them up in classes.
ego_tripped@reddit
We all used Head&Shoulders dude (Christa's favourite).
chainmailler2001@reddit
We were adults when the Columbia accident occurred and post 9/11. By that time we were well and truly traumatized to the core. Definitely not numb as I remember the Columbia rather potently but the Challenger was a huge deal because of the Teacher in Space program and that it occurred for many of us live on TV in the classroom as children compared to as adults in our living rooms.
Blurghblagh@reddit
Challenger was the first fatal space programme accident televised, it had a teacher on board and we were still at a more impressionable age. By the time of Columbia we were all adults distracted by work and life.
Dr_Sisyphus_22@reddit
Challenger was a big cultural event. First teacher in space. Weeks of buildup surrounding that teacher. “There’s going to be a science lesson in space given by this teacher!”
My entire grade school watched the fucking thing blown up live. My class literally couldn’t process what we were seeing and burst out laughing. The teacher was mortified. She talked about how she was struggling to understand our reaction on the next day. That was the extent of our debriefing for this horror show…”you kids were kinda assholes yesterday.”
I’m not sure crisis counselors were invented yet…or would be used if they were. Core Gen X memory.
Columbia had maybe 1/20th of the buildup. By that time, missions were background noise in the cultural zeitgeist.
alaskalights@reddit
A teacher at my school made it a couple rounds into the selection.
The look on her face was... memorable...
Dr_Sisyphus_22@reddit
I think the runner up / alternate watched the launch live. Imagine the emotional swing and survivors guilt on that experience.
TulsaOUfan@reddit
One happened while our schools aired in on TV which made it the first disaster most of us witnessed in real time.
The other happened when we were grown with jobs, bills, kids, etc.
Pretty simple. Same reason Thriller is so imbedded in our minds and not a One Direction video.
draggar@reddit
I have a good reason for my area of the country - I live in New Hampshire.
But, also, (and for the same reason) Christa McAuliffe was a school teacher during a time, while we were little s**ts (I was in middle school in 1986), we still wanted to learn and after the beginning of a great period of SciFi (Star Wars, Dr Who, ET, Dune, and even a lot of cartoons we watched, Starblazers, Voltron, Transformers, etc.) we were all about going to space.
Columbia, while also tragic, we were adults and living in a post 9/11 world.
oldfartjr@reddit
Depends on your age, I imagine
Total-Combination-47@reddit
a whole generation of kids watched it blow up live on telly.
snuffy_smith_@reddit
I saw someone post that they believed almost none of us saw it live we only saw replays and our minds said it was live.
That person got well roasted for spreading bullshit. As a whole generation was glued to tvs in every classroom, or in my case on the couch with my mom and brother watching. No school for us that day, history was being made.
Boy was history indeed made that day.
CreatrixAnima@reddit
I did not see it live… I was in high school and I guess the high school wasn’t all in on the teacher in space thing the way the grade schools were. I was outside in a fire drill, escaping from my general chemistry class for a few minutes, when someone said that. I thought it was that cool to joke about something like that. But when we went back in from the fire drill, there was an announcement about it on the intercom.
Total-Combination-47@reddit
Im British and we all watched it. It was a massive happening and the schools were all in support of the teacher going into space...
it was a such as core memory that even now I remember nearly every detail of when it happened, who was around me and the shock on everyone as it happened.
CreatrixAnima@reddit
We were adults when Columbia was lost. There also wasn’t all the hype about the teacher in space on Columbia.
Icy-Rope-021@reddit
I was in homeroom when I heard about Challenger.
I have no idea where the fuck I was when Columbia happened.
dab70@reddit
This. I was in high school, in the middle of the school day, when Challenger happened.
Akira75@reddit
Most of us watched it blow up live after the big deal was made of a lady astronaut who was a teacher.
GoslingIchi@reddit
One happens in your youth, and the other happens when you're older and have already experienced the first one.
Fancy-Breadfruit-776@reddit
Challenger involved a school teacher that was chosen from many entries from all over the country . One of my teachers was in the running I often wonder how he felt after the explosion. I didn't think to ask. I was in middle School.. .
FamousOnceNowNobody@reddit
Doubt its a core memory for those outside the US. I know of Challenger, but no idea when/what Columbia was.
DarwinGhoti@reddit
I watched challenger happen in person. It was intense. I think I read about Columbia in the paper the day after.
Strangely-addictive@reddit
I watched both live on TV. I think the big difference is our age at the time. The Challenger happened on the day of my 16th birthday, Columbia a few days past my 33th. You learn a lot about life, death, danger and technical falancies in those years.
chefybpoodling@reddit
Didn’t Columbia happen on a Saturday afternoon. I kinda remember watching some go,f with my dad by chance and us going into the yard to look up together. Challenger we were all captives in our school rooms.
reddog323@reddit
A Saturday morning if I remember correctly. I had a rare work function that day, and was watching the news when it happened.
vinegar@reddit
Were you in Texas, or somewhere you might have seen something?
OkConsideration8964@reddit
Because of Christa Mc Auliff, a teacher, on the Challenger. Something like 2000 schools were tuned into the launch to watch a teacher go to space. Millions of school children were watching. I was in college and skipped class to watch it because it was so highly publicized.
Goats_in_boats@reddit
Our entire 4th grade class was watching it in our classroom together as it happened. It was horrific.
tduke65@reddit
Same
queendweeb@reddit
2nd grade for me, it's one of my formative childhood memories.
Goats_in_boats@reddit
Same, and my kids were just asking my husband and I if we were watching it when it happened. We both told them the same thing you said
OkConsideration8964@reddit
I'm so sorry. It was traumatizing for me and I was a sophomore in college.
HighBiased@reddit
Boom 💥 😢
NFLTG_71@reddit
For me it’s Challenger because I was in stationed in Germany when that happened and as soon as it happened, every critical phone line on base rang at the same time and man. Oh man, it was chaotic.
Guardsred70@reddit
Because we were kids and had nothing on our plates when Challenger happened. When Columbia happened, I had kids, house and career and was too busy.
StrangeAssonance@reddit
Because I was a kid for the first one and someone came up with NASA being Need Another Seven Astronauts, it had been scared into my memory and how I think of NASA.
ZakanrnEggeater@reddit
When my buddies teenaged kid brother shared the first irreverent jokes about 9/11 I knew we were going to make it. That resiliency that gets expressed as dark humor is so key.
myheromeganmullally@reddit
Both shuttles are core memories. The original launch of Columbia was pure optimism and belief in the America my parents had assembled for me. The explosion of the Challenger was the first damage to that optimism. Everything after was more damaging piled on.
Grunge was the result of cumulative lies and failure.
Trust nobody else to bail you out. Fix it yourself.
itsactuallynot@reddit
Columbia landing for the first time is definitely a core memory for many of us. I still remember it and I was six years old.
vinegar@reddit
Right on the money, right on the money
vinegar@reddit
A visually intense shared experience in High school vs some forensic photos at 30 years old.
AquaValentin@reddit
Aside from watching the Challenger blow up during school, there was months of build up about the teacher that was in the ship. I was in 2nd grade at the time and we read tons of articles about her. It almost felt like you knew her and then she exploded right in front of us. Columbia couldn’t top that.
LangdonAlg3r@reddit
I can’t verify this at all, but I think the school even got a cable hookup added just for Challenger.
McGeeze@reddit
We were adults for Columbia
LangdonAlg3r@reddit
I don’t even remember Columbia at all. I don’t even know what you’re referring to honestly.
I can remember how into shuttle launches I was when I was little. I remember my parents sending me to daycare with a note to make sure that they’d turn on the TV so I could watch one of the earlier pre-Challenger launches when I was really little. I remember watching it too.
I think I just stopped paying any attention to the space program whatsoever after Challenger. My kids watched the recent launch with my dad. I didn’t even want to watch it and didn’t bother. They all had fun with it anyway.
I remember Challenger pretty vividly. It was so hyped for so long and it was such a big day. We watched it live in elementary school. I’ve never really thought about it, but I guess I stopped paying any attention because of that.
scawt017@reddit
Probably because we were so young, and it was so dramatic.
That said, for those who had followed the shuttle program with a sense of wonder since they were doing glide trials with Enterprise, Columbia hurt. She was the OG.
Poultrygeist74@reddit
That’s like asking if you would rather be slapped in the face or kicked in the crotch. Challenger kicked us all.
Automatic-Nature6025@reddit
9/11 raised the bar so high for how deeply we could be traumatized as adults, by the time Columbia happened, we were already fried.
JJQuantum@reddit
It was first.
mrgtiguy@reddit
Kids vs adults, 1st vs 2nd.
Hyperocean@reddit
I think the destruction of a fresh vehicle, seconds away from its launch pad is more akin to dramatic thought, as opposed to the weary, damaged craft on approach following a long journey..
Aggravating_Mix8959@reddit
I was a senior in high school when Challenger blew up. Every classroom had a TV rolled in and the teachers were all crying. The news was on and there were no actual classes. The news kept showing the explosion.
I will never forget that day.
salazka@reddit
Because the media promotes it more. It is a more sensational story and imagery. It's memory cultivation. Cultural farming. And guess who's the cattle. :P
jrob321@reddit
The short story is, people had generally lost a "universal" excitement and enthusiasm for the US Space program, and - although incredibly tragic - Columbia was perceived as just another part of "doing business" with space.
The "awe" of a handful of highly trained, modern day pioneers leaving the planet on a spaceship strapped to the back of a rocket had - through complacency- been looked upon as no big deal anymore, taken for granted, and - given the Challenger disaster having already been entered into the program as part of its history - people were not nearly taken aback by Columbia inasmuch as losses were somewhat apathetically accepted as part of the endeavor.
An, "Oh well, that's too bad", cynical mindset had already creeped into the country which was still suffering from 9/11, accepted the invasion of Afghanistan, and was getting up for a war in Iraq.
Also, the world was a much different place than it had been in 1986, and the impact of Columbia was just not a severe when filtered through the way media distribution was far more varied, and less reliant upon a small number of "networks" to maintain a population's focused attention. The variety of ways in which people received their "news" was far more divergent than to had been in 1986 and the general reaction reflected as much.
Beruthiel999@reddit
Age, probably, and novelty. Gen X were mostly teenagers or children when Challenger happened, and we'd never seen anything like that on live TV before. Columbia was many years later, and it was, unfortunately, the "second time." I was in my early 30s then. I grieved, but the shock value was not the same.
dreaminginteal@reddit
Agreed. Challenger was the first Shuttle disaster--it had appeared to be a perfect program before that. Add to that when in our lifetimes it happened, and all of the PR leading up to the first Teacher In Space...
Beruthiel999@reddit
When I went to college just a year or two after that, I met someone who'd gone to the school where Christa McAuliffe taught (years before, but she was the hometown hero). She was still so upset, showed me yearbook photos and stuff.
gomper@reddit
Nobody saw Columbia burn up on reentry live on TV. Most of us saw challenger happen live
wwJones@reddit
We all watch Challenger live on TV.
gbuildingallstarz@reddit
Gen x were post 9/11 adults, not kids
PRC_Spy@reddit
Challenger had a lot more publicity; there was a likeable teacher on board —a surrogate for all of us because she was more ordinary, not 'The Right Stuff'— and we were a lot younger.
They were both awful events, but I think more of us had accepted that death happens and spaceflight is really dangerous by the time Columbia disintegrated. So one was particularly tragic, the other just sad.
imrickjamesbioch@reddit
Um, Challenger happened first in the 80’s on live TV when most of us were in some form of school (elementary, middle, high school). It also was a big deal cuz it was the first civilian astronaut that happened to be a teacher.
I can’t speak for others but my school basically stop doing whatever and the teachers wheeled a TV into the classrooms to watch the launch.
When the challenger exploded, teachers and students were in shock and it was the only national event where I remember everyone got sent home. Generally the hallways were fairly loud when kids are let out or recess but it was pretty eerily how quiet everyone was. Folk just got their shit and left.
For Columbia, although tragic. That happened in the early 2000’s in a post 9/11 world. Also it burned up on reentry vs exploding on takeoff so the challenger explosion quite a bit more dramatic.
literalsupport@reddit
My take: For GenX, Challenger happened during critical years of childhood/adolescence. It also happened on a weekday morning and networks broke away from regular programming all day to cover it. Schools paid special attention to this flight.
The explosion was tragically spectacular and was replayed endlessly on all channels for the rest of that day (Tuesday January 28 1986).
On top of all this, the US president gave a speech that many felt was one the greatest of his career.
Everything about the day was memorable, and sudden.
When Columbia burned up, it was more abstract. It happened post 9/11 and early on a Saturday morning. Even Mission Control was not immediately aware of the incident, with several minutes passing before they realized what had occurred. Certainly there was some network coverage once known but it was not wall to wall like Challenger had been. The president gave a speech about it but it was nothing like what speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote on a cold January day in 1986.
Add to that, as others have said, GenX was in adulthood, many had already hit or were pushing 30. Another shuttle disaster was newsworthy but it didn’t carry the same generation defining impact of Challenger or, as for the baby boomers, JFK’s assassination.
ironeagle2006@reddit
We literally watch the fucking thing live on TV for the most part in school and were then told get back to doing whatever we're doing in class before they died.
Hell in 1991 when Desert Storm kicked off my high-school literally 75% of the kids had relatives involved in the thing as our national guard unit was deployed to Saudi Arabia for logistics services. We had over 800 students that had either a brother a sister or another relative in that area. We had 4 teachers in that unit. The care packages we as a school sent over weekly were massive morale boosters I guess. We sent over beef jerky toliet paper presweetened Kool aid Gatorade mixes batteries they asked for something we sent it. My oldest brother was in the USAF and as a joke asked for IIRC a few things. We sent a care package to his unit that weighed 20 pounds.
MaenHoffiCoffi@reddit
I remember being very underwhelmed by Challenger and I don't remember Columbia at all.
freddit1976@reddit
Trauma
Old_Goat_Ninja@reddit
They rolled the TV into the classroom for Challenger. Not such thing (for us) for Columbia. We watched Challenger happen live.
OpulentMountains@reddit
I think this is it. As simple as we were older (and frankly more jaded) by the time Columbia exploded.
Plus: Christa McCauliffe
Coffee_slothee@reddit
Forgive me, but I agree with my friend above. I was in first grade when the Challenger happened, and I can remember the play by play to the second. I was in college for Columbia and to be honest, I remember Princess Di dying more that this. It is just like the attacks on schools, we remember some, but others are just a blip in our memory. It doesn't make anything less tragic to be sure, but it is becoming a numbness that grows over time, and it is sad.
OpulentMountains@reddit
As a side note, my Challenger is experience is different than the popular Gen X version. We had a snow day and were home rather than in a classroom. Saw it blow up, thought “WTF?” then went outside and had snow fort battles.
Bright_Broccoli1844@reddit
Snow forts are fun.
Intrepid_Year3765@reddit
Cause we all watched it blow up live in school classrooms
DiamondHandsDarrell@reddit
This is it right here. It made a deep emotional impact on us as kids
SergeantBeavis@reddit
Challenger happened when we were kids, WATCHING it as it happened.
Columbia wasn’t being watched by kids on national TV.
But, I was living in DFW when Columbia happened. I was driving to my buddies house to spend the day helping him redo his floors. As I headed south on I-35E, I saw streaks of something flying across the sky. A few hour’s, we were taking a break from flirting when we heard on a news break what had happened and I realized what I had seen. Even then it didn’t hit me like the Challenger did.
katiekat214@reddit
We were adults when Columbia happened. Challenger is a core memory for us because a lot of us watched it live on TV since a teacher was one of the crew members. Those who didn’t saw it on the news that afternoon or night. It was talked about in school either purposefully or whispered about by our faculty. It was shocking and devastating for the staff who’d been so excited about one of their own going up.
When Columbia exploded, a lot of us were working. We didn’t see it live. It was just a regular mission, so it wasn’t hyped. Yeah, the disaster and aftermath was newsworthy, but it wasn’t as fixated on for us because there wasn’t anyone “special” on board - no one out of the ordinary who wasn’t trained for the job.
It was also 2003, so unfortunately just a couple of years after we’d all been witness to the largest tragedy on American soil in our lifetimes. We were kinda still numb. Sad to say, but Columbia was overshadowed as a core memory by something recent as a much worse event that became the core memory for that time period.
refuz04@reddit
I watched challenger in elementary and Columbia in a Saturday lab in collage.!
I don’t watch space stuff live anymore.
Sudden-Cap-7157@reddit
Yeah I couldn’t watch the Artemis launch
agoodspace@reddit
I had such a hard time too
SenseEuphoric5802@reddit
Because Christa McAuliffe was a big deal. Her image and likeness was splathered over every newspaper and magazine cover, there were flurries of articles written and TV segments. And everyone watched it live, as wonder turned to horror. It was all about Christa, until it wasn't.
reeferthetuxedocat@reddit
Space travel…especially had become “routine”. The danger and risk had somewhat worn off…become less important compared to what was being accomplished by the shuttle program.
We were kids and NASA put a teacher onboard. It became not just another launch of a “routine” mission but one we would watch closely as we were still in school and it was near that a teacher is going to space.
I was heartbroken to watch Challenger explode. i was unfortunately home sick watching Price is Right earlier in the day…I recall telling my mom the shuttle blew up…
I heard about Columbia on the news but it hurt just as much. I remember fondly watching Columbia rise on her maiden voyage with white ET…boosters and main engines…soo cool. So when she lost it hurt too…maybe because it had become…routine.
Select-Regret-9840@reddit
Challenger was hyped like crazy before launch. We all watched it explode in school.
Columbia happened when I had young kids. I didn't even know we had a shuttle in the air and I'm a quazi space nerd. Was in line at a drive through to pick up weekend breakfast for the family. Not the same impact.
What I do remember about Columbia was the amount of debris that fell all over my county here in NE Texas. That was kind of wild.
Bright_Broccoli1844@reddit
Did you personally see any debris?
Select-Regret-9840@reddit
I did not see any in person. One of my employees had some land in his pasture. He showed me pictures he took with his flip phone. He called the 800 number NASA gave out and someone eventually came out and picked it up.
I do remember the radar signature on weather radar was very interesting. Streaked from NE Texas across Louisiana and part of Mississippi.
TurtleToast2@reddit
Every classroom in the nation didn't have Columbine on the tv.
scarlettohara1936@reddit
For 5th graders to watch
agoodspace@reddit
There was a teacher on board. Christa McAuliffe. So the teachers hyped it up. After the explosion in first period, every period thought it would help us process by showing it and or watching footage on news again. It just ingrained it more.
newhappyrainbow@reddit
There was so much hype about Challenger, and it was at a time where if you missed it you might never get another chance to see it, AND they brought the TVs into the classrooms, so we all watched it without a lot of support to understand it. My teacher turned it off as soon as it happened, rolled out the cart and changed the subject.
I also went to Challenger Middle School four years later.
I didn’t even remember Columbia until you mentioned it. I have no recollection of what I was doing at the time. I was a married adult without kids. It had zero impact on my life other than some momentary sadness. I had no connection to the event, didn’t know it was happening, just saw the outcome on TV later that day.
WOTrULookingAt@reddit
Yep. My same exact experience watching it explode and tv went off. 2nd grade. Took years for me to figure out what happened.
newhappyrainbow@reddit
My parents talked to me about it later but I was also 2nd grade.
SoulStripHer@reddit
Challenger was early in the shuttle program and drew more interest as well as horror. There's only one first time for everything.
Brilliant-Pie5207@reddit
Age difference most likely. I remember the concern about Columbia and wished there had been any other choice made. I’ve read a lot about both and the fragility of the tiles along with all the issues the external rockets brought- I’m still amazed it flew as well as it did overall.
FairBaker315@reddit
It's a core memory for me because it was the first time I saw people dying in real time at school.
The second time was almost exactly a year later when Budd Dwyer killed himself on live tv.
Bright_Broccoli1844@reddit
I did not see Challenger live on t.v. I didn't have any college classes that day and was busy doing other stuff.
I did turn on the television to watch Columbia land that Saturday morning except it never landed in Florida. I was having a lazy morning because I didn't have to work at my full-time office job.
Necessary_Giraffe_66@reddit
It’s because we were kids. Now I kind of remember seeing Challenger on TV. I heard Columbia in person, saw the trail of smoke in the sky and had parts of it land in my town so it’s more of a memory since I was grown up.
Milo_Minderbinding@reddit
I was a kid and watched Challenger in school.
I was out of college when the other one happened. Kind of a silly question.
Cold_Mission101@reddit
Same for me. It was such a shock to watch the Challenger disaster as a teen sitting in a classroom with other teens when it happened.
By the time Columbia happened, I was an adult with a bit of life experience and had watched the towers fall in 2001 and all of the associated atrocious videos that accompanied 9/11.
jayphailey@reddit
I don't know about you, but I remember the day Colombia went down in some detail
0/10 - Do not Like, would not recommend.
But I was 36 years old when Colombia happened.
In 1986 I was 19.
It's a pretty sizable age difference.
A lot of Gen-X was in school. They showed the launch live - there was a teacher on Challenger. Christa McCauliffe. She was going to teach video classes from orbit.
It was a whole PR thing - so all the smaller children in school had front row seats to a teacher and six other astronauts being exploded live.
Kinda sticks with you.
highknees69@reddit
One was on takeoff and way more dramatic. I think the assumption was that once they are up there, it’s easy to get back and land. I remember both, but the Challenger explosion was mind blowing at the time.
catgirl320@reddit
The history books talk about the news of tragedies like the Lusitania and Pearl Harbor and the San Francisco and the Hindenberg explosion deeply affecting and traumatizing people and galvanizing them to action.
Beginning in our childhood we were seeing increasingly constant news coverage; the 24 hour news cycle started when we were in middle/high school. School curriculum was based around the Challenger flight and many classes were watching it live.
We also grew up hearing about: multiple mass shooter events like post office shootings and Columbine; the disasters at Ruby Ridge and Waco; and the Oklahoma City bombing.
9/11 was THE tragedy to end them all. How many of us were paralyzed and watched the footage of the towers coming down over and over and over for days?
At a certain point you become desensitized. Colombia was sad but by the time it happened it wasn't the most unimaginable thing we had seen.
Migamix@reddit
I was playing hookey that day, and I was still watching it live.
wardcw@reddit
Because of the age most GenXers were when Challenger exploded.
Many of us watched it in school because of the Teacher in Space program. Death was not the lesson plan for the day for teachers, so the rest of the day was a disturbing mess and most of us remember it.
755goodmorning@reddit
Grew up in Central Florida so we didn’t just watch it live…we watched it happen from our playground as we saw it in the sky. And then spent the rest of the day and days after processing it.
Columbia was a tragic event as an adult but Challenger was a critical event for everyone I knew.
ProfessorJNFrink@reddit
Yikes. Watching anything live like that had to be so hard and you’d have to process.
We all had to process, but watching it first hand must have been surreal.
BokChoyJr@reddit
Columbia was a watershed moment for us early GenX. Challenger? Not so much.
Quadfather44@reddit
During Challenger because 1 of the astronauts was a teacher it was watched in every school across the US. I was in 3rd grade... Literally every class room stopped what they were doing and we watched.
texan01@reddit
Challenger we all watched as it happened, or most of us did.
Columbia I watched live on my front porch as it broke up over Dallas but it was early enough in the morning that not a lot of people watched it, as it had become routine.
oceansapart333@reddit
Through some odd circumstances, we happened to catch it on tv and watched as the crew on earth lost contact with them and tried in vain to regain contact.
texan01@reddit
Yeah I had gotten up early and was watching the news when they said it would be flying overhead, I walked outside and saw the beginnings of the breakup as it headed towards east Texas.
My first thought was -“that doesn’t look good” and went back in after it left my field of view while my parents were listening to the radio loop on TV.
SubstanceNo1544@reddit
3rd grade watching it with everyone else in class...
We weren't expecting it and the entire class was tuned in af. It was pretty horrible
officially-random@reddit
I was 9 years old in 1986. Space shuttle flights had seemed somewhat routine. I didn’t know before Challenger that something could go wrong with a space shuttle.
When I read the news that morning of the Columbia disaster, I got confused for a second because at first glance I thought the headline was something about Challenger’s anniversary. It took me a second to register we just lost another crew of seven astronauts.
kimapesan@reddit
Challenger: we were kids in middle/high school, when core memories are formed.
Columbia: we were in our thirties and we had seen that shit already.
214txdude@reddit
Both are for me
clintfrisco@reddit
We watched it in school with our teachers and class because a teacher was being sent up.
writtenbyrabbits_@reddit
There was a teacher on the Challenger so the launch was massively hyped up at schools and everyone in most every school in America was following along. When it exploded it was horrifying on a scale unlike almost anything that came before it because it happened in real time and kids across America watched it in school.
The Columbia did not have similar circumstances at all.
zipper1919@reddit
The Challenger had a regular person-a TEACHER. Which made EVERY school pull the tv cart out and all the kids watched it blow up in school.
Live.
The other one was not as big of a deal because it didn't have a regular person/teacher on it.
Plus, it wasn't televised in every school like the Challenger was.
Plus in 2003, gen X was out of school and had their own kids.
Tricksey4172@reddit
The geography teacher (class of 60 kids!) shuttled out a tall grey cart with a tv with antennae. He fussed about and got it all set up. When the explosion happened, he just turned off the tv and we sat there. I just thought about that the teacher who was selected to be on that flight, how excited and proud her whole family must have been, how brave she was. So sad. IIRC there is a wonderful exhibit about the Challenger in the Boeing Air Museum near Seattle.
Nobody better dare ask about John Hinckley and Reagan in here. This generation had historical events left right and center and the thing is, we knew it at the time and not in retrospect. Gorbachev tore down that wall(ish) after we grew up with nuclear war drills. I’m old enough to remember where I was for Lennon, too. Some of us had RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. as well.
10kAndNerdy@reddit
I am mid GenX. Challenger blew up on my 12th birthday (6th grade). So GenX was almost all between K and HS/college, only the oldest among us would have been at work, and only the very youngest would have been too young (and they probably call themselves millennials anyway).
It was televised, and many teachers rolled that TV into class on the AV cart. Or gathered in the cafeteria.
And this was before other horrific televised live anythings. Like, I’ll bet none of us had seen another terrible thing happen live on air before this.
Maybe we all didn’t watch it but enough did that we were probably not far—like, yards—from someone who did. But shuttles don’t explode. That’s not a thing they did.
Once Columbia exploded, we were like, yeah, man. That is a thing that can happen.
writtenbyrabbits_@reddit
I was in second grade and my whole grade watched it happen in our cafeteria. Definitely a core memory.
Tiny-Balance-3533@reddit
We were still in school! We were kids, ffs!
And it happened first…. By a lot. Many of us had begun having kids by the time Columbia happened. (Mine was around 18 months)
Which is another reason: what core memory do you have after 9/11? Covid, yeah? I remember Columbia happening, but I was for sure busy with other stuff. All of us were. Shuttle was well into well-worn territory. If it hadn’t been planned to be retired yet, it didn’t have long left in it.
Bottlecrate@reddit
Because we all watched it blow up launching one TV
crimoid@reddit
Seriously. Challenger had so much hype. It was THE thing. Everyone was watching. Then BOOM. Gone.
Columbia, as sad as it turned out to be, was just another re-entry then... oh sh!t.
SoundOk4573@reddit
1986 vs 2003.
Is this about serious question for Gen X subreddit????
SoundOk4573@reddit
Addition: Challenger we watched live. Columbia our children watched live.
Gisselle441@reddit
The thing about Columbia that I remember is that I was living with my parents at the time, and I was still sleeping that morning. I woke up and heard my mom on the phone in the next room saying that the Space Shuttle exploded and I remember thinking I had to be dreaming about Challenger, like there was no way this was happening again.
No_Association9496@reddit
We were moving to a new house and left the TV for last because of the launch. My brother saw it live and came running to get my parents and me. The movers followed, and we all stood there in shock watching the replay of the explosion.
Kindly-Might-1879@reddit
During our formative/school years we likely had limited experience with the stages of grief. Challenger exploding was a collective memory leaving a deep wound, and was the first such experience for much of Gen X.
FAx32@reddit
Teacher on board was part of it for younger GenX. Most of us were school aged (I was in HS). Happened during the school day and was one of the first disaster type events that was fully televised with many younger GenX watching it live as it happened.
azchocolatelover@reddit
I was a freshman in college, waiting for my Intro to Literature class to begin. Someone came into the lecture hall and announced that the Challenger had exploded. I read the book "I Touch the Future: The Story of Christa McAuliffe" when it came out in October of 1986. I was bawling by the time I got to the last chapter, because we all knew the ending.
DisappointedDragon@reddit
I was also a college freshman when this happened. I was in my dorm room that morning watching TV when it exploded.
Manual-shift6@reddit
One of the reasons was the “Teacher in Space” hype that was so widespread. Christa McAuliffe was the first truly “citizen astronaut” and it put a tremendous amount of public awareness on that Shuttle launch. Also, so many schools were watching televised coverage, and the o-ring failure and explosion was very visible. Plus, as has been said, it was the first really bad space program failure. It all adds up…
froction@reddit
Uhh...Apollo 1 exploded on the launchpad and killed everyone on board.
Manual-shift6@reddit
No, Apollo 1 caught fire due to the capsule, which was undergoing testing with the astronauts inside, being filled with pure O2. It also occurred in January of 1967, or 19 years before the televised Challenger explosion. It was the first (and until Challenger, the only) space program related deaths. It was not during a mission or launch.
froction@reddit
...and it exploded in the launchpad and killed everyone on board.
Manual-shift6@reddit
No, Apollo 1 did not explode. It burned violently, but there was no explosion. The three astronauts could not get the hatch open to escape the fire, due to the design of the hatch. Several parts of the Apollo capsules were redesigned from what was learned in the aftermath of the fire.
calmlikeasexbobomb@reddit
Most of us weren’t alive in ‘67
Cool-Coffee-8949@reddit
Yes, but it wasn’t during or after the launch. And it wasn’t on live TV.
I’m not saying it wasn’t traumatic, but it was different.
Extension-Rabbit3654@reddit
Because we were children that had never seen tragedy before, by the time Columbia went, we'd seen Challenger and the two towers explode
wolfysworld@reddit
They are of course both tragic but there is no comparison between the two. Because the teacher was onboard the challenger, it was a huge deal, hyped for months and months and we followed the process of a teacher being chosen, trained and tragically killed. A huge majority of us watched it happen live, remember the reactions of adults and kids around us. As an adult, I didn’t really follow the trips into space back then, I don’t know if I would even know what happened had one of the astronauts not been from my hometown area; we had a lot of extra coverage because of that.
better-off-ted@reddit
For me it's because everyone I knew watched Challenger blow up live on TV in school. All of the schools make it a major event, every class was tuned in. We watched it explode, the teachers didn't know what to say after that, and then they called school off for the day and sent us home. Columbia wasn't as big of a cultural event (at least for me).
Infamous-Bag6957@reddit
I watched Challenger happen live on tv in elementary school. I’ll never forget it.
Two_DogNight@reddit
Because we watched them live, back then. We (my school) were out of school because of weather and watching it at home. There was a schoolteacher on board, not just astronauts, so it was a big deal.
There had been several successful flights before it, so it was shocking. By Columbia, everyone knew it was a possibility.
icounseltoo@reddit
Yes, Christa McAuliffe ... one of our teachers was a finalist for that trip. She was in the final three. She was incredibly distraught that day it exploded. Plus all of the hopes and novelty of a teacher going to space to have it end in disaster. A terrible day.
lake-rat@reddit
Challenger happened in my formative years…still in high school. I was already an adult with a mortgage when Columbia happened.
icounseltoo@reddit
I would guess it was because of the imagery. We watched Columbia explode, saw the replay 1,000 times. We were in school and they announced it over the intercom. A lot of us rushed home during break to see what happened ... if we had friends who drove ...
With Columbia, also a horrible tragedy, it was less in our faces. I don't remember seeing any videos of it, but I'm sure there was something ... Maybe that's why? I did see Columbia successfully take off when I was in Florida, just happened to be there during a launch. RIP to both crews.
Do_it_My_Way-79@reddit
I remember neither one & I don’t know why.
capzig@reddit
My junior high school teacher had us watch the Challenger. I remember how excited he was because a teacher was aboard, and then how he started crying when it exploded. I've never forgotten that day. Very sad!
msvegas@reddit
8th Grade Reading class, Mrs. Pruitt. That's where I was. The only reason why I remember Mrs. Pruitt's name, is because of the Challenger.
You had to be aware of all of the coverage about Christa McAuliffe before this happened, to understand why this was a very memorable, shocking event. The media covered her from the time she won her seat, throughout her training, and up to the tragedy. Absolutely shocking to see this process, built up with heavy anticipation, and to find out later about the incompetence behind the mission failure.
Columbia happened in 2003, after 9/11. Columbia's tragedy could not top 9/11, so it is a vague memory.
SnowblindAlbino@reddit
One happened when I was in college, the other when I was a parent and almost 40. Very different life stages-- and of course the first loss hits harder as well.
VoltTulsa@reddit
I remember our teacher rolling the tv cart into the room for us to watch the launch. When it exploded, she unplugged it and rolled it back out the door. Was a tragic day all of us will never forget.
Vonnegut_butt@reddit
My experience was the exact opposite! We weren’t planning to watch it, but once the explosion happened, a teacher brought the TV cart in and we watched the replay over and over and over.
WalterSobkowich@reddit
That’s how I remember it too!
arianrhodd@reddit
I was in the cafeteria for study hall and saw Challenger on the TVs.
LeMadChefsBack@reddit
I was in 6th grade for Challenger. I was well out of college for Colombia.
jt2ou@reddit
Both are ingrained in my mind. Even more so after visiting Kennedy space center and seeing the memorial to them and the crews lost.
soopirV@reddit
I have a really awful but unique souvenir from the Columbia disaster- my parents were in cape Canaveral for the launch and sent me a mission postcard with the crew roster and mission insignia, postmarked with the date of the launch from Cape PO, and I received it in Syracuse, NY where I was living after college the day it exploded. I still have it in my memento box, it’s very eerie.
ambientdiscord@reddit
Because Challenger came first.
zemol42@reddit
They were both really sad days, as I recall, but one happened in a simpler media structure with the heightened focus while the other one happened in a fracturing media environment and on what was considered a routine ops event.
MrsDottieParker@reddit
With the Columbia, I wasn’t a child who aspired to be an astronaut watching it live after learning all about it and the astronauts on board for months before the launch. I was an adult who had only read a few articles about it. The bloom was off the space shuttle rose.
robertwadehall@reddit
I was 14, watched it happen live on CNN in my current events class. It was also my mother’s birthday. Will never forget it. And I think because I was living in a Florida beach town (and had seen a Columbia launch the year before in person), it all felt more ‘local’ to me than a distant disaster would have.
Acceptable_Result488@reddit
Columbia was a reentry no one watched, the other was a launch with a ton of build up,watched by millions of school children
UnicornFarts1111@reddit
The Challenger was shown to all the school children live (or most of us).
The Columbia happened on the return, and it wasn't being watched by 1/2 the nation live at the time it happened.
Interestingly enough, I have more memories of the Columbia myself. I remember seeing on TV right after it happened and all the coverage it got at the time.
alaskalights@reddit
Challenger was live TV gore. Columbia.... just kinda didn't show up at the landing...
Emotional impact, I suppose.
newyork_newyork_@reddit
Christa McAuliffe.
rogun64@reddit
Columbia is a core memory for me. It's just not discussed as much for whatever reason.
I was already out of school for both, so there wasn't much difference for me, but many of us probably have big memories of what happened in school and they were out for Columbia, too.
Green-Protection-600@reddit
They made us watch it live in elementary school. We watched seven people die, live. It was so tragic that all students were sent home 30 minutes later.
NicolleL@reddit
I was in 5th grade and they didn’t even tell us. I didn’t find out about it until I got home.
Downtown_Anteater_38@reddit
I was a sophomore in high school and had my first period free and was in the library with some friends when one of the AV boys wheeled in a TV and turned it on to the coverage of the explosion. It was shocking, I saw multiple teachers crying that day, and coverage and discussions of it took place in every class. I was keeping a journal for speech class and wrote about it that day.
A couple of months later Chernobyl exploded. It was a firey spring in 1986. Columbia killed the shuttle program, but I was working, and the Cold War was over, and a lot of shit had happened between 1986 and 2003 - including 9/11. Columbia, with all due respect, was nothing compared to 9/11 - from a dramatic news report standpoint. I was also going on 33 when Columbia disintegrated, as opposed to going on 16 when Challenger exploded. Older, more jaded, less hormonal, and I didn't watch it explode over and over and over.
Columbia was terrible in a less visibly dramatic way, and we weren't kids anymore.
afriendincanada@reddit
We never saw Columbia explode. It disappeared from radar and reports came in that it had been lost but there was no explosion footage
withac2@reddit
There is video footage of its demise, though. No explosion, but definitely evidence of disintegration.
exitparadise@reddit
Columbia happened when I was almost 30 years old.
That's why.
phillyphilly19@reddit
Many children and adults watched it happen live. I remember exactly where I was.
Feralcat01@reddit
I was in Marine Corps bootcamp on Parris Island when the Challenger exploded. We didn’t watch tv. One afternoon the DI gathered us in the center of the barracks and ordered us to sit. They wheeled in a tv, showed us a video of the launch and explosion without comment, then wheeled the tv out of our barracks and back to bustling our asses. Definitely a corps memory.
usury87@reddit
Nicely done there. Nicely done.
Possible_Shoulder_50@reddit
We all watched it happen live at school together.
heathermooney97@reddit
A few reasons. Gen Xers were firmly in the "core memory"/foundational stage of their lives when Challenger happened, and a lot of us were watching it on TV in school when it happened. A teacher was on board, which was why it was so hyped up in schools and shown in classrooms. We were all much older when Columbia happened, and while it was no less tragic, it wasn't a "first" for us and many of us didn't see it happen like we did with Challenger. Thus, it didn't necessarily become seared into our brains like Challenger did.
Top-Scarcity5937@reddit
You were. "We" were not. I was 19. Your view does not equal the universal view.
heathermooney97@reddit
Re-read the question.
Top-Scarcity5937@reddit
Why is Challenger and not Columbia such a core Gen X memory?
Answer: The question presumes that it is true. it is based on that premise. And that premise is wrong. I am core Gen X. I was not carrying a friggin' lunch box at the time.
Pan Am 103 was a bigger deal. Hundreds dead.
You can't see that your small picture is not the same as the big picture.
mattimattlove111@reddit
One was going up and the other coming back down
JBeeWX@reddit
The first teacher in space program. They partnered with public schools to build it into the science curriculum at the time.
Also it was really cold day. A lot of kids on the east coast were out of school on a snow day. Even in Florida ( contributing to the accident)
MWoolf71@reddit
Context matters. In 1986, the Cold War was still going. The Space Shuttle was a big deal. I was in high school for the Challenger and married with a kid for Columbia.
Stefferdiddle@reddit
Challenger happened when I was a kid so it made a bigger impression. Also at that time shuttle launches were still a novel event. Columbia happened when I was a full grown adult and was traveling in China and shuttle missions weren’t publicized so much so most people weren’t aware there was a shuttle up there until it fell apart over a Texas.
FrankParkerNSA@reddit
The Columbia sticks out in my head because I woke up early Saturday morning to watch the landing on live TV. I had been watching the press conferences where NASA execs said there was nothing wrong because the foam was lightweight and knew it was complete BS.
A high school physics student can calculate a feather traveling at Mach 3 has the same amount of energy as a bird flying through the intake of a jet. If a jet engine can be destroyed, heat tiles didn't stand a chance.
Solid-Bee-1613@reddit
The exhibit with Atlantis at KSC has a section with artifacts from both shuttles and items from the crews. It definitely made me tear up when I saw the exhibit a couple years ago. Growing up watching every launch from our backyard and now watching SpaceX regularly in FL, I think it feels different for locals and those of us that work in aviation/ aerospace because it is part of our lives.
0hheyitsme@reddit
The entire country watched the Challenger blow up on live TV. I was a senior in high school at the time so it became a core memory for me. I was 35 when the Columbia disintegrated. I wasn't watching when it happened. Both were awful but seeing the Challenger blow up during class is burned into my memory.
tireworld@reddit
I hold the Columbia tragedy closer to the heart than Challenger. I didn't get to see the Challenger accident live, and I was in the 5th grade. I lived close to JSC and had classmates whose parents worked out there. One of them came to our class weeks later and gave a pretty detailed account about it. I was on console at JSC working mission control support when Columbia happened. Ill never forget that day. That final re-entry footage that you saw on the news, was my handy work. Weeks later, I was in San Antonio working on the Columbia accident investigation. My video footage made the national news when we found the "smoking gun"..
Equivalent-Layer-482@reddit
Whoa.
Expensive_Rhubarb_87@reddit
6th grade for Challenger. It was a huge deal cause there was a teacher going!!!
Every classroom was packed and we watched live. And for a while no one really got it, not even the teachers. And you knew when they realized because those TVs were turned off with a quickness.
Colombia, I was grown. It was on the news and everything but it wasn’t as impactful. Yeah things stopped for a while after Challenger, but space flight had been a normal thing for years. Until it wasn’t, and Columbia shredded itself.
Mightaswellmakeone@reddit
Watched Challenger go boom, live on tv, in second grade. When I hear Columbia I wonder if we're talking about the country, college, or store.
TheBigBadDuke@reddit
I watched Challenger blow up over my head in 8th grade English class. The teacher took us outside to watch it. I was in Melbourne, Florida.
Solid-Bee-1613@reddit
Saw it from backyard in Sebastian FL. It felt like the trails of debris hung in the sky for a longtime that day.
HearingDue2119@reddit
Saw it with my own eyes too. third grade in Orlando
KingPabloo@reddit
Was a freshman in college for Challenger, an adult for Columbia which exploded over my house - heard the boom, looked outside and saw all the debris trails in the air (live in DFW).
makeup1508@reddit
Since Krista McAuliffe was the first civilian and a teacher on the shuttle it was being broadcast. I was in my dorm room waiting to watch Y & R. Skipping class so I remember it vividly. If I had gone to class it would still been meaningful but I wouldn't have seen it live.
Particular_Act_5396@reddit
Watched the challenger on TV in the classroom. Didn’t even hear about Columbia for years
so2017@reddit
There was a teacher on board. I feel like every school was watching because there was a teacher in the space shuttle.
It was a collective trauma.
Top-Scarcity5937@reddit
Jebus. Reddit and "trauma". You're old enough to know better.
AldruhnHobo@reddit
Challenger was high school or early 20s for many of us. I guess it's more impactful at a younger age? I don't know.
Top-Scarcity5937@reddit
I was glued to the TV in the dorm when we bombed Libya and all of us were thinking, "Oh great. They're gonna turn the draft on again."
Challenger was something I saw in the paper.
Pam Am 103 was big news to me. A space shuttle explosion didn't exactly hit home. A plane get blown out of the sky - that was different.
irlenborn27@reddit
I think you have a good point. I watched the challenger on tv in 2nd grade. The teachers panicked, class was awkwardly continued, vivid memories of that day and the days to follow. Colombia, although equally tragic, is far less vivid. Not even sure where I was or what I was doing when it happened.
AldruhnHobo@reddit
I remember 9/11 being like that also. There was no real work done that day.
OldLifeguard-00@reddit
Columbia happened in 2004/2005? We were adults working….
_HystErica_@reddit
It's a core memory for me because I watched it live from my hospital bed after an emergency C-section.
OldLifeguard-00@reddit
That said child is 23 years old!!
DaniCapsFan@reddit
February 2003.
Techchick_Somewhere@reddit
I couldn’t have pinpointed when it actually was so this makes soooo much sense.
quietlumber@reddit
And we'd lived through 9/11 by then. I still recall where I was for both, but Challenger was more of a blow to our innocence.
100dalmations@reddit
Because Challenger happened before Columbia, and reminded a whole generation that space travel is in fact really dangerous. If it had been the opposite, I'm sure Columbia would've been a core GenX event. As you say, I don't recall where I was when the Columbia tragedy happened; but I know exactly where I was when told me the Challenger blew up.
Every-Cook5084@reddit
Most of us were kids plus the teacher Christa
Cool-Coffee-8949@reddit
We were still children or teenagers when Challenger blew up. No astronaut had ever been killed after liftoff before. When Columbia was destroyed, we were adults and we no longer had those illusions.
Mobile-Boot8097@reddit
I remember Columbia because that was the day UL Lafayette was demolishing the old men's dorms. It was a whole event, crowds gathered, tv news trucks, a drawing to get to push the kaboom button...
As we were waiting, I heard a rumble. I thought for a second that maybe something went wrong and they blew the building down the street first...
Didn't realize what I heard until I called my 7 year old kid in Dallas to say "Hey guess what happened this morning?!"
"The space shuttle blew up over Dallas."
"Wait...what?! Well that sure beats my news!"
gatorgopher@reddit
I was 19 when I watched, horrified, as Challenger exploded. I was in the Navy when Discovery launched after the program had been suspended for more than 2 years. It was emotional. Columbia was so sad, but just another day in the space program, until it wasn't. It felt like the end.
Self-Comprehensive@reddit
Because we were kids when Challenger happened and grown ass adults for years/decades when Columbia blew up.
rmhoman@reddit
My thoughts because I experience watching both on TV. One is we were forced as school children to watch it in class and it was hyped up so much. Then when it happened the adults didn't know what to say or do. We all saw it. We saw it blow up but even the reporters were in shock and we didn't hear anything from mission control for some period of time to confirm it. That is a core life changing moment. Columbia we were all adults. We had seen more experiences to understand what happened. Although the landing of Integrity was stressful for me. Also if you had NASA TV you could put the pieces together that something was wrong very early in the event. Then the pictures came. Even live there was a disconnect from the audio and the actual video of it breaking up. In fact if my memory serves I didn't see the video footage until the nightly news.
Top-Scarcity5937@reddit
Yeah, this question presumes the answers it gives.
One step back: It was NOT a core memory. I am Gen X all day and was already in college when the challenger thing happened. It was the height of "Well, that's not a good thing. Anyway ...".
Our bombing Libya and us thinking "Oh shit, they are gonna draft us."
That was followed by Pan Am 103, but nobody named an elementary school after that, despite 100s of people dying.
SuchDogeHodler@reddit
Every school focused on it on it because it was going to be a teacher in space. Many had everyone watching live.
I'm from Florida and lived near the space center. We all watched it happen live above us......
My father worked for harbor branch marine institute...... their subs were used for recovery operations at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Also as a very creepy side note. To this day small pieces still wash up on the beaches after hurricanes......
FREDICVSMAXIMVS@reddit
In addition to all the very correct reasons people are posting, here's another factor I think comes into play: the Challenger explosion was much more visually striking. We all watched a space shuttle, that was low enough to still look like a space shuttle on camera, explode in a very dramatic way. It was clear in that second that disaster had struck.
The Columbia, on the other hand, already looked like a fireball as it reentered the atmosphere. When it broke up, it was a slow coming apart that took you a minute to realize something was wrong.
Plus, as others have mentioned, I suspect a lot more people were watching the Challenger take off than the Columbia return home
blackcain@reddit
I don't know why? Columbia landing after launch was something of deep pride for me. I was very sad when Columbia and her crew blew up. Deeply sorry. You are right that even today it doesn't feel like people remember Columbia.
RetroBerner@reddit
There was a teacher onboard, and because of that a lot more kids saw it happen live in their classroom. It's a shared experience, so it hits harder.
Knight_thrasher@reddit
I was out of school when it happened. Also not from USA
Ok_Actuator2219@reddit
Space was still new and the space shuttle was still amazing. As a kid in the 6th grade, it was exciting.
Twisted_lurker@reddit
At the time of Challenger, the space shuttle program was a huge success and point of pride. Plus we were kids and had not seen such a tragedy.
The Columbia was not our first tragedy. There was 9/11. I think there was even a question of terrorism for a moment.
goobernawt@reddit
I was in my late 20s for Columbia. It was just another tragedy in a world I was becoming accustomed to being full of tragedies.
Challenger was a big deal in school because of Christa McAuliffe, we talked about her repeatedly and were looking forward to the launch. The total failure of the launch and the loss of this woman who'd become a national hero left a mark that would last. It's unfortunate that I can't name another member of the crew that was lost.
BakeMcBridezilla@reddit
Challenger was first. Columbia was, just another space shuttle blowing up.
gerwen@reddit
I think also shuttle missions were rather routine and not reported on much anymore when Columbia went.
UrsaMajor7th@reddit
One was from our youth, the other adulthood. One was in launch where more were watching, the other in re-entry without the added hype of the teacher in the team.
alinroc@reddit
We saw Challenger live on TV. "The whole world was watching" - it was seriously hyped up because of who was on board.
Columbia was just a routine flight, returning on a Saturday morning. Landings were never broadcast unless it was a significant flight and even then, not until they were on final approach. Debris was recorded by a military aircraft or two after the breakup but that was it.
vonye25@reddit
My science teacher told us and they wheeled a tv into the classroom and we watched it. It played over and over on the large screen in the cafeteria. It was traumatic and felt so close because a teacher was onboard as well. You just realized that you’re watching people die. 9-11 felt that way too.
johnnyg08@reddit
I think...the Challenger was on the way up and on camera..and Columbia was on the way down. NOW...I want to make it clear...to me they are both equally tragic! But I want to answer the OPs question.
Blametheorangejuice@reddit
I saw Challenger live on TV. That said, I will never forget Columbia. It was raining heavily and I was picking up some early morning diapers from Target when the news came on the radio. You could tell something was wrong before the anchors really started to speak.
RetroactiveRecursion@reddit
Challenger for me was in HS. So many burned in memories from that era, probably had to do with adolescence.
Columbia happened in my 30s. I got home from a client and my wife said "You hear about Columbus? It exploded."
In think I asked if someone nuked Bogata. I didn't know what age was talking about.
Anyway, I was older so could probably compartmentalize process better.
SumoHeadbutt@reddit
I pretended to be sick that day and hid in the basement watching TV that day expecting to have a day off fun stuff on TV
.... it wasn't fun at all, they repeated the footage of the explosion over and over sll day on all channels
LadyBertramsPug@reddit
I actually was sick that day. I went home from school with the flu, fell asleep with the radio on, and woke up to the words, “and then the space shuttle exploded.”
aislebeaver@reddit
I had strep throat. Same experience. I had the chicken pox when Reagan was shot. Apparently my being sick caused major news events.
AcanthocephalaDue715@reddit
Because we watched it happen live on TV and then we were escorted out to recess with no explanation or outlet to discuss what we just saw
Narezza@reddit
Challenger was the first highly publicized space shuttle tragedy, and it fell in the center of most of our youths. It was being shown on classrooms throughout the country as once of the astronauts was a school teacher. We were all watching while it exploded.
Columbia was in 2003. We were all jaded 20-somethings and it leaves less of a mark
davekva@reddit
Many of us were jaded 30-somethings by 2003.
Chainedheat@reddit
Amen
SummerBirdsong@reddit
Columbia was a pretty big event to me. I was in bed having just woke up. Just having a lazy start to the day when the trailer shook from a loud boom. I though a plane from the base must have gone supersonic. Saw the news later.
There were NASA search parties looking for debris up and down our road. I don't think they foundu h as far west as we were. Most of it was found out near Nacadotches.
Full_Security7780@reddit
We watched Challenger live on TV during a very impressionable time in our lives. It left a mark. I was in 4th grade and we continued on with our day like nothing happened.
allisniftyandswell@reddit
Me too and same. At the time I didn't think much of it, nor appreciate that those astronauts and teacher lost their lives but I never forgot watching it and how confusing it all was.
SnooCamera@reddit
Timing. I was in high school and the class across the hall from us was watching Challenger live. We heard their reaction. Their teacher came over and, with a shaky voice, told us what happened. There was live, visual proof.
Columbia had live news coverage, but most people saw the event afterword. And all of us GenX were adults at the time. The youngest GenX would have been early 20s, and as adults, one is a little more jaded.
Ironically, I did directly see and film Columbia a couple of minutes before it broke up. I was back inside in time to see the break of telemetry and look of dread at mission control.
BigDougSp@reddit
I saw Challenger explode at my baby sitters house after I got home from Kindergarten.I was 5 .
I saw Columbia break apart at my girlfriend"s apartment when I was about to graduate college at 23, around two years after I saw thousands die on 9/11.
My age, understanding, and sensitivity to death were light years apart between those events. I would imagine similar is true for others.
Old_Use7058@reddit
1st grade when it happened. Wheeled in the tv and boom!
Deer-in-Motion@reddit
Because we were much, much younger. I would have stayed home to watch the launch at age 9 but my sister caught me. I've always been happy she did. It was traumatizing enough as it was.
Mulliganplummer@reddit
The Challenger had a teacher as one of the crew. We all related that teacher to the one we had. There was more hype.
DoookieMaxx@reddit
I was watching the Challenger, in 6th grade, on a TV in school when it happened …. That burned it into a core memory. Emotionally.
Columbia happened at a time when I was a new father …having a baby at that time made the disaster horrible, but I was already emotionally engaged in life by then.
Ok_Cloud9042@reddit
Same but in third grade! Far more than Columbia. Columbia as an adult just brought back ptsd from challenger in different ways
wolf19d@reddit
Because I fucking watched it live in 3rd grade and we fucking went about our business for the rest of the day with no time/space to process it.
FormerCollegeDJ@reddit
The Challenger explosion was dramatic, while the Columbia gradually broke up. Also, the Challenger disaster occurred when we were young, with some of our cohort watching the launch in school (due in part to Christa McAuliffe winning the contest to be the first teacher in space), while the Columbia tragedy happened when we were adults. The Columbia breakup also took place on a Saturday when fewer people watch the news.
bluenoser613@reddit
Challenger shattered the space age dream with hard reality
MidwestAbe@reddit
I'll just say neither are core memories for me. I was just 8. No memory of it being on in school. Certainly remember the idea of the tragedy and everything. But of all the things I remember out of my childhood im not sure i would even list it.
ab39z@reddit
Challenger was the first "space" tragedy we'd ever experienced. I was 21 and in college. The weirdest thing for me (and this is going to sound ridiculous, but it's true) is that I was in a Journalism class when the explosion took place. At the same time that it happened (I learned after class), I felt what I described at the time as a hammer-blow pain in my head enough to make me wince and make a noise/grunt/something. And, I immediately experienced my first migraine. I actually had a meeting of the campus newspaper staff right after that class and had to lay down on the couch in the newspaper office because of the pain. While there, someone turned on a radio or tv and heard the news of the explosion. For me, at least, Challenger was a Kennedy moment.
Another freaky connection: one of the PE instructors just hired at that college that year had been a runner-up on the short list of prospective teachers to be on that shuttle.
JurisUrsus@reddit
I was 9 when Challenger exploded. Most people my age I know saw it explode on live TV while watching the launch in class. We had been following the progress of the teacher on board and were planning to watch her give a lesson from space. It was a huge deal; the first astronaut fatalities since Apollo 1 (also tragic, but not televised live as it was an accident in training). Kids and adults were sad, as I recall.
I was 26 when Columbia broke up on re-entry. I was busy with law school and didn’t know it had even been in orbit. Word of the incident came to me while watching CNN on a study break. Still a sad event, but it not being seen live nor having a well liked teacher on board gave it less of an impact to the general population. For Gen X, huge difference between experiencing these events as a kid compared to as an adult.
Roland-Of-Eld-19@reddit
The younger Millennials were in school when Columbia broke apart
Squibit314@reddit
Because we were gathered in a classroom and watched the crew die as it happened. The Columbia was on a Saturday when there was no way to put us all together to watch it happen.
davisyoung@reddit
Because Christa McAuliffe was a schoolteacher on board and she was going to do the first lesson from space for schoolchildren, there was intense interest from schools to set up TVs in every classroom.
greyjedi12345@reddit
I was sitting in the cafeteria with some friends when the news broke. Most of us were in a daze the rest of the day. The Columbia happened after September 11th which will never leave me. The Columbia was tragic, but all my emotions were drain on that terrible Tuesday morning and the years following.
thewmo@reddit
By Columbia most of us had jobs, possibly kids. More people watched launches than landings. The accident happened with many cameras focused on it. Many reasons.
FishWoman1970@reddit
Challenger happened when many of us were in high school. Columbia occurred when many of us were in our 30s. Tragic shit that happens in our formative years is core memory. Tragic shit that happens in adulthood is life.
No_Maintenance_9608@reddit
At the time Challenger happened we kind of took for granted the launching of shuttles and other vehicles/satellites into space. And we were all younger (I was in 10th grade when it happened) when it occurred and the image of it exploding forever burned into our memories.
KimBrrr1975@reddit
When Challenger happened, it was a very big deal to every school in the country because of Christina McAuliffe being a teacher. I was 10 years old, barely understood the gravity of it but I knew it was a big deal. My parents watched it on the news for hours after. It was probably the biggest such event of my life up to that point.
By the time Columbia in 2003, I had 2 kids. I had seen bombs lobbed on tv during the Gulf War. I had already spent April 20, 1999 pacing my apartment with my infant son while a school shooting played out live on TV. I had watched 9/11 happen. It was still a shock, but I kind of feel like after Columbine as a new parent, and 9/11, nothing else will ever feel that intense. So, part desensitization, too. We are so inundated with news articles every day (millions of them daily) that we forget major news stories a week after they happened.
ThrowRA_nthng@reddit
I was in the 5th grade in Florida, the whole school was standing outside watching.
Round_Ad8947@reddit
I’m embarrassed to say that we didn’t see the Challenger because I was in current events, a class where we read the newspaper and talked about it.
Out most reviled teacher broke in to class with an ashen face that it had exploded. All we could do was eye roll her drama and ignored her.
Only later did it sink in.
(I also was told that a plane hit the WTC and responded with “that’s happened before—a plane hit the Chrysler building in heavy fog”)
atclew@reddit
Oddly enough, I'm part of a subset that has seen both in person. I was in in elementary school in Brevard County, south of the Cape, watching with the rest of the class outside.
For the Columbia, I was sitting on my north-facing apartment balcony in Waco, TX having a coffee and cigarette when the debris trail appeared over North TX.
I know there's gotta be others out there who share such a macabre distinction.
DaniCapsFan@reddit
I have a different weird distinction, but it has nothing to do with space flight.
growflet@reddit
Challenger exploded in 1986, there was a teacher on board (Christa McAuliffe) and at the time it was being shown in schools to get kids interested in space. It exploded during a televised launch, while kids were watching in the classroom.
FUN (not so fun) FACT: originally it was going to be Big Bird from Sesame Street sent up instead of the teacher! But the costume was big and bulky - big bird was 8 feet tall. So they went with a teacher instead.
Columbia was destroyed in 2003. 17 years later, and space shuttle launches were not nearly as much of a big deal on TV, this happened during re-entry. Reentry was not very televised at the time.
youngkpepper@reddit
Big Bird dying in a shuttle launch arguably would have been even more catastrophic and traumatizing to kids of a certain age. Would Sesame Street have carried on with the character?
It's never sat right with me that McAuliffe got, and continues to get, more attention than the six career astronautson board. I know it's because she was more representative of the average American civilian and thus more relatable.
Apollo 1 is the NASA disaster that haunts me most, and I wasn't even a gleam in my parents' eyes when it happened.
jp112078@reddit
Damn, thought I was going to get to say the Big Bird thing!
Very, very un-fun fact: the crew most likely survived the explosion and didn’t die until they hit the water.
bernardfarquart@reddit
I was an adult, but I watched Challenger live on TV. Made an impact.
Chemical_Author7880@reddit
A large number of people were watching live when the Challenger blew, especially younger people as schools had the kids watching as the first teacher goes to space.
DaniCapsFan@reddit
Two possible reasons: 1) All but the oldest of us were teens or kids (I was a senior in high school), and therefore this affected us more strongly; 2) we actually saw it happen.
When Columbia happened, all of us were adults; even the youngest of us were in their early 20s. Plus, when it broke up over Texas, we didn't see it happen the way we did Challenger.
AnchorScud@reddit
has to do with the school teacher on board. a lot of the country was watching live because of it.
fatyoda@reddit
I was living in Huntsville AL when Columbia happened. Huntsville is one of America’s core “space cities” so the landing was being shown live on TVs on the mall where I was working. Strange fact about Huntsville is that many schools are named after NASA tragedies. Each of the Apollo 1 astronauts have a school named after them and my son went to Challenger elementary when we lived there. All my morbid mind could think was “ guess we have ti build a new school now”
whitingvo@reddit
I remember watching Challenger live in school. Space was a big deal in the mid 80s. Columbia was many years later and there were other more pressing world affairs going on at that time.
Thick_Journalist7232@reddit
While I know about the Columbia disaster, I also remember watching the TV in grade school when it made history landing for the first time. I think I still associate it more in that memory. That and being disappointed that the enterprise never made it to space
Prestigious-Age-5867@reddit
They are both core memories for me. Houston kid. Challenger I was 13 in middle school in between periods and a kid ran by saying the Space Shuttle exploded. I thought he was joking. In 2003 we were expecting our first child and I had just run my first 5K on a Saturday morning. Got to the finish line and they said the Shuttle had an accident.
brookish@reddit
17 years apart, vastly different surrounding circumstances
SmallBarnacle1103@reddit
Also the Challenger was a huge deal months leading up to the launch. Krista McCullough was a celebrity and the news couldn't get enough of her.
brookish@reddit
McAuliffe
PhilAndHisGrill@reddit
With Challenger...
We were younger.
In many cases, we saw it happen live.
We had collectively forgotten how dangerous actual space flight could be. This was the first US crew loss in an actual space launch (Apollo 1 was a test on the pad, but wasn't going to be a space launch... and most of us weren't alive then yet anyway).
With Columbia, we'd already experienced a loss of a Shuttle orbiter. We were also older- I'm a young GenX ('77 vintage) and I was 25 when that happened. That's a bit old to have something affect you like that. It was also post-9/11, and that left enough of a mark that losing a Shuttle barely registered if you weren't a space nut.
Jolly-Guard3741@reddit
In 2005 I had occasion to go to the rural area of East Texas where Columbia’s wreckage came down. The recovery teams had to clear cut hundreds of acres of land in order to get all of the different parts of the orbiter.
Blue_Henri@reddit
I was twelve and it’s the only time I’ve ever seen someone die. I was at recess in seventh grade in Florida close enough to see the whole thing. Our home room teacher the next day had us remember each and every astronaut’s name. I still remember them all, and if I miss one, I know I’m too stoned or buzzed. On the other hand, by the time Columbia happened, I’d lived through the news of Oklahoma City, the first Trade Center bombing, Columbine and 9/11. I was a full adult when Columbia happened.
I just guess my lens got longer.
shuanm@reddit
We weren't discussing Columbia all day in school. I was 12 in 86, and had always wanted to go to space. That made me reevaluate my hopes and dreams.
HenryLoggins@reddit
One was highly publicized and viewed on live TV, the other most learned about after the fact.
Every-Mousse6228@reddit
Challenger happened live and had a teacher on board. Also the landings never got the same amount of attention as liftoffs, so while theoretically people could've seen the Columbia tragedy live if they were watching the NASA TV feed, very few did. Now, if it had become public knowledge that Columbia was likely fatally injured on the way up, I think you would've had more attention on the landing.
PutAdministrative206@reddit
Because we all watched Challenger blow up at the same time as kids at school. Columbia disintegrated on re-entry in our adult lives. Meaning very few of us saw it live. If you have warning you’re about to see a disaster, it is less damaging ti view it.
the_47th_painter@reddit
Because the Challenger disaster happened when I was 9 and was watching it in class on TV. Tough thing for a young kid to process.
The Columbia disaster happened when I was 26. The mental capacity to process it was a little more solid than that of a 9 year old. And was probably able to process it because I had already been through something like that with the Challenger explosion.
StankyBassFace@reddit
This right here would be the correct assessment. Kid brains = impressionable.
LibertyMike@reddit
Funny, my wife & I were talking about this last week. I remembered it lost its heat shield, but I forgot that they all died on re-entry.
Altruistic_Fondant38@reddit
Because it wasn't broadcast on live tv. It was on tv in news breaks. Challenger was made a big deal because it was the first time a regular citizen was on board.
DancesWithPigs@reddit
Not just a regular citizen but a teacher.
TheShiroNinja@reddit
How many astronauts can fit in a Volkswagen?
the_OG_fett@reddit
Wasn’t so much the type of tragedy it was the shock of tragedy. Our parents had the Kennedy assassination, grandparents had Pearl Harbor.
Challenger was the first truly massive national tragedy in our lives and many saw it happen live.
relltj@reddit
I was walking through the dorms going to the cafeteria when challenger happened. I remember everyone standing around the tv in the lobby standing there in complete shock. First time my gen saw anything like that.
Jayrandomer@reddit
I was in grad school working on an experiment that was shelved after Columbia, so it was more impactful, but there wasn’t a video. It was just them not returning, so harder to form a deep connection to it. Also I was mostly an adult at the time.
ColdObiWan@reddit
Timing? Challenger was when we were still young, by Colombia we were all adults.
Profile? Challenger was teachers in space, Feynman and ice water at the Rogers Commission, and Reagan’s “touch the face of God” speech. Colombia was… uhm… none of that.
Mammoth_Ad_483@reddit
We were younger for Challenger and when Columbia came around we'd already lived through Challenger. We were grizzled. We were smoking cigarettes with our thumb and forefinger like we saw some shit in Nam...
Evans-HOF@reddit
Agreed I was in 4th grade for Challenger teacher wheeled in TV for launch we saw what happened then got sent out for recess. Bunch of 4th graders talking about WTF did we just see.
emmaapeel@reddit
Because the first teacher in space was on board, for those of us who were in school at the time (especially elementary school), Challenger was and is much more of a shared/collective memory than Columbia.
The lead up to the Challeger space flight was huge.
NeverEverMaybe0_0@reddit
Almost everyone in school was watching on TV.
I and my classmates (post HS) were watching from Orlando while walking from class to lunch.
Responsible_Trash_40@reddit
There was a teacher on Challenger so just about every class in the country had the launch on tv.
kghales@reddit
First time was a shock, second time the loss was more familiar. The second time was also not that long after 9/11.
WattDeFrak@reddit
We were in classrooms watching the Challenger explosion live on TV. Columbia landing wasn’t a shared experience.
BraveLittleFrog@reddit
They both are but I was on deployment in the Gulf when Columbia happened. It hit harder as a kid.
Turkzillas_gobble@reddit
Challenger happened in junior high. Columbia happened in my...was I like 30?!?