As we honor Ronald Reagan’s birthday, let us also remember his greatest achievement: January 28, 1986: the Challenger explosion.
From his famous speech:
There’s a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, ‘He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.’ Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: sometimes shit just fucking blows up.
Congratulations on hitting the big 2-5, Challenger Explosion! You’re only covered by your parents’ health insurance for one more year. Use it wisely.
(Sorry about that joke, people who died.)
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Cruel and disgusting.
I don't miss the NASA="need another seven astronauts" jokes.
How about the lady astronaut 'What's this button for?" jokes? I'm guessing not much.
Ironically, Morton Thiokol is still very much alive and well.
Well, don't blow a gasket, drifter.
Obviously a major WTF moment.
You know what was most tragic about that day? John Denver was supposed to be on board.
He got his soon enough, in a Long-EZ experimental aircraft (ran out of gas). This particular design is often referred to as a "canard-wing aircraft," so I'm pretty sure Sarah Palin was the real victim there.
So it's Ronnie Raygun's Birthday's birthday and the Challanger Explosion's birthday. Coincidence? I think we all know the answer to that question.
I remember it like it was 25 years ago…
The Day NASA's Balls Shrivelled.
(Yes, there should have been greater oversight, & a delay in the mission if need be, but, seriously… The Space Coast has turned itself inside-out since then. & that's a shame.)
This was Obama's fault.
Because he is morally weak.
What caused the Challenger to explode? A faulty O-ring!
I think I've proven my point.
There's an "a" in Challenger and in Obama. Coincidence? I think not my friends.
Plus, a "C" kind of looks like an "O" if you squint really hard. The MAN just doesn't want you to see it.
Has anyone seen the Shuttles Birth Certificate?
One of the interesting aspects of the Challenger disaster was that it came out in the subsequent investigation that a bunch of engineers were sending up red flags over having a launch in such cold weather exactly because the o-rings could fail. And of course the folks in charge decided to go ahead in spite of their advice. Which, oddly enough, is exactly the same set of circumstances that occurred when the Columbia broke into thousands of pieces over Texas — engineers raised the warning, the operation proceeded anyway, and disaster resulted. And oddly enough, those two disasters happened under the two most hands-off, disconnected, incurious presidents in recent American history. Not that that probably means anything.
Then there's the fire on the launch pad that killed the crew of Apollo 1 which happened under LBJ.
On the other hand, having known dipshitted managers who ignore good technical advice.. maybe not so much a coincidence that a majority were RW types politically.
With crew cuts!!! And Birth Control glasses (aka Clark Kents)!!!
There were rumors NASA refused to delay the launch because they wanted the shuttle up in the sky for the Gypper's state of the union extravaganza (which then had to be delayed a whole week, although the real victim was surely Sarah Palin).
Anyway, the rumors have never been conclusively disproved 14,000 times, so by birther standards I'm free to go on spreading them.
Looks like NASA will be drinking Sprite again, because they can't get 7-Up.
Too soon.
Curiously, every time I see Palin getting ready to speak, I involuntarily say to myself, "Go with throttle up."
So does Tracy Morgan, but in a different way.
Tracy Morgan does too…but he's telling that to his penis.
I got to see this live on the school's TV when I was a wee kindergartener. Also known as "The scary day when we learned teachers can cry."
Yeah, that was not at all a good day.
Yeesh. I, as an old, skipped my tech physics lab and went and slammed 3-dollar pitchers with my late-20-something fellow colleagues over at the student union and talked about it.
Watched it from the cafe in the 5th floor of the Sociology building at college.
In my 5th grade class. Bit unpleasant there. The teacher just kinda turned it off and didn't know what to say.
I was watching it at work with my boss, a sort of motormouth, manic Woody-Allen-on-happy-drugs kind of guy, yammering on about how much he's always loved the space program, even when he was kid and blah blah blah…
Then a long period of unhappy silence. The only time I've heard the guy shut up for more than five minutes.
As an even older old, this one's seared in my memory. I was working for the Japanese Consulate in Houston as a speech writer that morning when one of the low-level flunkies came to my office and told me that the Challenger had just exploded. He had a huge, almost comic grin on his face when he did this. It was only some years later I learned that in Japanese culture (as in some other Asian cultures), one tries to present a pleasant face when delivering terrible news. Sort of a "don't pile on" philosophy.
At the time, though, I just thought he was a cunt.
I was in 5th grade and my school had a disgusting policy that if some sort of news needed to make its rounds to the different teachers then one lucky student from one lucky class got to be the bearer. That day I was that lucky student. Sending a 10 year old to tell a whole elementary school that a cute teacher and some astronauts just died is part of what's wrong with this world.
Jesus, that's just awful.
I think the only reason we even watched it in the first place was because the teachers wanted to see the first teacher in space. We only had 1 or 2 TVs in the school, so they must have figured "eh, this is educational enough, let's get the kids together in a classroom so we can watch it."
No, I think lots and lots of the classes around the country were watching it. I was in jr. high school and we were watching it. It was considered to be something educationally and culturally worthy of watching.
That's good to know, actually. We never, ever did that sort of thing at our school so all this time I was just chalking it up to teachers being interested in teacher matters (which I don't think is a bad thing).
I was in my high school Physics class when it was announced and our Physics teacher told us she had applied to be the Teacher in Space. Creepy.
I'm not going to listen to commercial radio today, in case someone dredges up that horrific version of Van Halen's "Remember the Heroes" with overdubbing of Reagan's speech from after the disaster. Nails on blackboard. Pretty much nails on blackboard even without the overdub.
Reminds me of "Show me the Way" by Styx, after it was overrun by the victorious sounds of GHWB, right after the Persian Gulf Distraction in 1991.
The "O rings" failed and many were reamed…not the first time that has happened – but definitely the worst.
Luckily, the internet was so new that we were never subjected to the meme "NASA FAIL."
I was saddened like everyone else. But I have to wonder…do we Americans ever let ANYTHING go?
I know I still get sobby when I think about Dolly Madison saving Washington's portrait when those Brits torched the White House.
1814 – NEVAR 4GET!
You have won my history major's heart for the day.
Ah shucks, you're making me blush!
Lots and lots of things: For example, by the 2010 elections we had already completely let go of everything that happened between Nov. 2000 and Jan. 2009.
Ahem. Aren't we all missing the true tragic anniversary here? It was 20 years ago today that Scott Norwood missed the field goal that could have won the Super Bowl for the Buffalo Bills. <shakes fist> Norwood! Grrr…..
"Buffalo Bills' and "won the Super Bowl" in the same sentence — now that's crazy talk.
In the summer of 86, I was drinking about a 1000 beers with some Air Force guys, patriotic fellows on the front line of the Cold War in Germany who refueled jets. And do you know how they honored the Challenger? They had dubbed the CNN footage of the explosion onto a VHS tape, as a prelude to Caddyshack.
"It's a Cinderella story!"
I'm with Edward Tufte on this one; PowerPoint caused the Challenger disaster.
Just goes to show ya, nobody can fuck up quite like Americans; and to top it off, we keep reminding the World about it over and over and……..
I, too, watched the fucker explode in school, on the TV in high school sophomore history. Fellow Pennsylvanians might remember Bud Dwyer offing himself on live TV the following year. The 80s were pretty good for that kind of thing.
This is good news for John McCain.
Actually, now that I think about it, it was at least as much "patriotism rah rah" as "educational", maybe.
I was a young music teacher at an elementary school. Most of the kids were watching this live. Several yelled "All Right!" when they found out a teacher had been killed.
Little shits.
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