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| Photo by NASA |
It seems like only yesterday, as the images are still so vivid in my mind. I was a college sophomore, and had not been watching the coverage live because I was in class. I'd met my boyfriend for lunch and a friend came up and said, 'Did you hear the Space Shuttle blew up?' We thought it was a sick joke, but he insisted it was true, so we went to a TV room in the student centre and watched.
And watched. And watched. Over and over, for hours. See, my boyfriend (and future ex-husband) was crazy about NASA and hoped, as a computer science major, that he could join them someday. He had plans to the Space Shuttle (this was before the War on Terror, of course). He knew that ship backwards and forwards, as much as a teenage non-astronaut could. In fact, during replay of the explosion he pointed to a piece of debris and said, 'Look, there's the crew cabin. It's intact. They're still alive at his point.' That fact came out to the general public long after the explosion, but he called it during the first could of times we watched it. I watched his dream die that day. They wound up grounding the fleet for years, of course. Later, he switched to religious studies and as far as I know has been working in retail. Oddly enough, I do have a friend who does work for NASA, a very dedicated mechanical engineer who did several internships with them while in school. She and her husband both work on interplanetary projects.
Anyway, that day was the first time in my life that I had the 'moment I'll never forget where I was, what I was doing', like people do for 9/11 or others did for the attack on Pearl Harbour or the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I am so sorry these brave explorers died while trying to touch the heavens. RIP.
PS I'm publishing this at the exact time of the anniversary, but writing later in the day and timestamping it differently. Just wanted to be sure no one thought I was doing this at work. :)
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