Where Were You When The Challenger Exploded?
For those of you not old enough to remember, back in the '80s, when Americans still celebrated space, thousands of people lined up at what was then called the Kennedy Space Station to watch a missile with, among its astronauts, an elementary school teacher, when it mushroomed into a huge explosion taking off and everyone inside died. I was working at a huge corporation back in those days as a newsletter writer and my editor -- a big burly guy known for never tucking his shirts in, because he couldn't -- came rushing into my office (yes, even the lowest on the totem pole had offices back then), and screamed, "The Challenger blew up!" I can remember to this day his puffy red face and were those tears, telling me the unthinkable had happened. (Of course, this was before Newtown.) The spaceship had exploded and scattered in white-hot pieces all over the blazing blue sky, in front of the teacher's proud parents and, I believe, her kids. We learned later that ...