Twenty-five years ago, the space-shuttle Challenger exploded moments after launch, which resulted in the deaths of Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe most-famously, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik.
The photo above is Challenger making its way to the launch pad through a heavy fog. I was out sick from school that day, and vaguely remember it being the first time I had ever seen my mother cry. She was a college classmate and acquaintance of McAuliffe at Framingham State; her excitement and the anticipation of seeing someone she knew — another teacher — be launched into space and then whip-lashed to tragedy so quickly upset her. But I didn’t understand this as a young child. I only processed something awful happened that day because it was easy to understand how sad my mother had become. [via gearfuse]
