20 Years Ago Today

I was living and working in the Daytona Beach area in 1986, and every rocket and space shuttle launch filled me with excitement... Cape Canaveral was truly "Spaceport USA", more real than any science-fiction television show or movie. I always kept abreast of any launches, because we could see them from Daytona (being 20-25 miles north of the launch area) and the sight of the arcing exhaust plumes followed by the sound of rolling thunder ten minutes later was just an incredible experience. I had even set up my camera on the roof of the highest building in Daytona Beach to take photos of the previous shuttle launch, a night mission. I worked as an "instrument man" for a land surveying party then, so I was naturally outside January 28th, 1986 when the ill-fated space shuttle Challenger lifted off that bright clear cold morning. We all paused to watch it as we normally did, but after a while we knew something was horribly wrong... instead of a high, curving exhaust trail, there was a ball of smoke with at least three separate smoke trails corkscrewing out of it. My party chief muttered "That doesn't look good at all." and we knew he was right. Within minutes our truck radio crackled as the office sent a general message to all the crews in the field... "Uh... apparently the Challenger has blown up and crashed, guys... that's all we know." Stunned, we stood there looking at the smoke trails, waiting for things to fix themselves, but eventually the smoke dissipated and there was nothing left but a bright blue sky.

I'll never forget that horrible moment in time and when I think of bravery and heroics, I think of real astronauts and real tragedy.

R.I.P.:

Francis R. (Dick) Scobee
Michael J. Smith
Judith A. Resnik
Ronald E. McNair
Ellison S. Onizuka
Gregory B. Jarvis
Sharon Christa McAuliffe

Onward and upward.
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