Do you remember where you were on this date in 1986?

[testcase]

Was in a local park, cross country skiing. We actually heard a muffled boom and wondered what it was.

[Zoidberg]

At UNO (University of New Orleans); the news spread quickly, and we found a TV at the Student Union. I walked into the room just as the replay of the breakup came on the screen.

[Carthaigh]

Sitting in Physics class...

[lost in space]

I was working at Apple's Fremont plant in one of the office buildings. A group of us were standing at our secretary's desk watching the launch. We all jumped when it exploded. Nothing got done the rest of the day.

[Doc]

Skipping school. Playing with the VHS recorder in my parents' bedroom. Fighting with my brother over who got to operate the remote control.

[davester]

I was sitting at a light table in my office at UCLA. I heard a loud yell from the office next door and went rushing in. Another graduate student had been watching the launch on TV (there was a lot of interest since I was in the Dept of Earth and Planetary Sciences so our group probably had experiments on board). We just watched agape, over and over. A very sad day, especially with all the build up about the school teacher. I can't imagine how painful it must have been for the kids in her class.

[Paul F.]

Pottery elective class in high school.
2nd Period.
That's when the announcement came over the PA... about 10 minutes after.

[JPK]

Jimmypoo wrote:
Vividly......

Like a stain on my memory.

That sums it up for me. I was a Freshman in Burge Hall at U of Iowa and remember it vividly. And I don't remember much else from being a Freshman in Burge Hall!

JPK

[$tevie]

Someone at work got a call from her mother telling her "the space shuttle blew up", and since her mother was the sort to quote the National Enquirer we all mocked her and told her not to be ridiculous. She got mad and went to the conference room and put on the TV and holy sh!t her mother was correct. We all stood in the conference room in silence, watching the networks replay it over and over and trying to accept the truth.

[Jimmypoo]

I had been there 3-4 weeks prior for the first time 2 shuttles were on the pad simultaneously.

I don't recall which was to launch... but we got to 30 seconds and we were scrubbed. It was just as
cold a day, and it had an eerie, surreal feeling about it.

Had the same conditions and possibilities (Dec 29, 1985 was cold, just like Jan 86), & I'm glad I missed that launch.

I've been there for a dozen, and never saw one on site. Have seen many living in FL, just not on KSC
property. Glad I was still at Purdue on Jan 28. Made it just a little less affective, but not much.

And with Purdue having been Astronaut-King University until 2002, first and last man on moon as grads,
the entire Apollo Mgmt hierarchy built buy a Purdue professor (Org Comm), and Grissom among the
other grads besides Neil & Cernan, we felt it really hard that day, and for weeks to follow.

More astronauts graduated Purdue than all other universities combined until ~2002, when Air Force/Naval
Academy finally took top spot. They took 45 years to do so... quite the legacy at my alma mater.