The Challenger Explosion: People Share Memories of Watching the Space Shuttle Disaster Live
On January 28, 1986, the country witnessed a national tragedy when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crew members, including teacher Christa McAuliffe, who had been selected for a new civilian-in-space program.
Millions of Americans — especially schoolchildren watching live — watched the horror as the shuttle exploded on television. As a result, the explosion remains one of the most defining and traumatic live-broadcast tragedies in U.S. history.
People who remembered watching the catastrophic event have shared their stories on Reddit for those who were too young to remember. Their recollections offer a vivid picture of what it was like to watch the disaster unfold live on television, particularly through the eyes of a child.
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‘I saw it in person.’
In a thread titled, “What was it like seeing the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on live television?”, one Redditor wrote: “I saw it in person. Was with a surfer from Cocoa Beach who had seen rockets go up all his life. When we saw the big puff of smoke and two contrails, he said ‘Dude, that’s not supposed to happen that way.'”
‘Terrible day.’
Another shared, “Was with my dad who had worked on the Apollo mission, watching. He said “That’s not good”, as soon as the SRBs went veering off in opposite directions. It was so terribly sad, especially since they kept cutting to the VIP spectator stands, and to Christa McAuliffe’s parents looking up in confusion. Terrible day.”
‘The teacher started crying…’
One Redditor shared what it was like to watch the horror unfold with a high school class: “I was in 10th grade in high school psychology class in a Houston suburb. We were watching it live. When Challenger blew, the teacher started crying. Nobody I knew had EVER seen him with anything but a smile on his face – never angry, never annoyed, and never sad.”
“It turns out that the reason we were watching it (though we’d never watched a launch before) was because he had submitted his paperwork to be in the Teacher in Space program. He knew that could have been him,” explained the poster. “It’s been 35 years, and I can still see his face.”
NASA/Getty Images
‘They had the entire school in assembly watching the launch…’
One person shared a story of watching it with their entire school. “I was in the first or second grade, don’t remember. But I was in school in Centralia, Washington, at the time, and because one of the astronauts was from Washington State, it was a big deal… So they had the entire school (elementary) in assembly watching the launch on a giant T.V. cart,” wrote the Redditor. “Yeah, it was traumatic… Hundreds of kids, grades K-8, [were] watching in stunned silence, and then the crying began. They canceled school for a couple [of] days after that.”
‘I watched the news and cried…’
Another Redditor wrote that they watched from home on a snow day. “My school district had a snow day, so I was home. I was reading in my room when my mother called up the stairs to say that the space shuttle had exploded. I thought she meant that maybe something had happened while the space shuttle was still on the launchpad. I called down, ‘But did they get out? Did they get out?’ She didn’t answer — I think she was calling everyone on the phone,” shared the poster. “I went into my parents’ bedroom and turned on the T.V. When I saw the trails of smoke, I just dropped down on my knees and leaned against the foot of their bed. I watched the news and cried for what seemed like hours. I still well up thinking about it.”
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And finally, a Redditor shared a story of watching it in their classroom. “I was in 4th or 5th grade, and our class was brought out into a bigger room to watch it with a couple of other classes on the special T.V. they wheeled out. We all had been following it closely because it was space stuff and because of the woman teacher on board, Christa McAuliffe,” read the post. “When we all realized it had exploded and they were all dying it was a horrifying moment. Everyone was quiet, and the teachers didn’t know what to say. They herded us back into our classrooms.”
“It was one of the first times it really [sank] in for me that adults didn’t really know what they were doing a lot of the time.”
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