You know where you were.
I know where I was.
I had just finished checking out my edit room for a day's work on graphics for that night's news. I remember moving like a bat out of hell because I really wanted to finish the checkout in time to see the launch that morning. I have been a space travel buff and science fiction fan since I was 11, and up to that time had never missed a launch. With just two minutes before the launch, I finally satisfied myself that the room was ready, and turned on the NASA feed. I'm not sure why, but my videotape operator, Hildred, and my character generator operator, Sue, were not sitting at their station but standing next to me when the Challenger took off. I am ALWAYS nervous during a launch, and tend to watch very quietly. Oddly enough, Hildred and Sue were deathly quiet too. Suddenly, orange filled the screen, and I flinched. It was confusing because, within less than a second, the feed cut to a wide shot, and at first I thought the cameraperson had lost the shuttle, and was pointing too low. Then I saw the TWO contrails...I said "Something's gone wrong, really wrong." Hildred said: "That's nothing, Charlie. That's just separation." Sue said: "Charlie, that always looks like that." I said "No, Sue, no. That only takes a second. Oh my God, something's wrong. Where's the ship? It doesn't disappear that fast. Something's really wrong." Launch Control: "Flight controllers looking very closely at the situation. Obviously, a major malfunction."...Launch Control: "Flight telemetry reports the vehicle has exploded." The tears came.
My producer, Paul, walked in. He said, "Well, the shuttle take off?" Sue told him what happened. I tried to pull myself together, and for the next two hours we slo-moed and slo-moed the video, trying to figure out what happened. I remember my mother calling me up about a half hour later, asking me how I was doing. She knew how much the space program meant to me. She kept saying "It's so sad. It's so sad." I told her I was okay and that we were trying real hard to solve the mystery. She told me to call any time, and said goodbye. A videotape operator from upstairs, Joe, came running in, and pointed out to us the puff of black smoke during the takeoff; he was the first in my company to spot it. A few minutes later, another editor, Frank, came in and pointed out that the cabin looked like it could have careened off the explosion almost intact.
And so it went, for almost two days, sifting, collecting, examining. That first day, after about two hours, I was more or less back to normal, though I remember Paul asking me, in some surprise at my reaction, whether I had ever actually witnessed someone being "blown away" right before my eyes.
In the course of those two days, it became apparent that most of the nation had been traumatized as I had been. I kept thinking about the assasination of John Kennedy. I remember exactly where I was when I was told that too. That had been bad for me, also; it was more a reaction of terror, though, than the feeling of shock, loss, and grief which I felt here. A few mornings after the disaster there was an op-ed piece in the Times, which pointed out that in a way the space program, and the men and women in that program, had become proxy children for all of us, and that was why it had hit us all so hard. In reading that, all my feelings at seeing the horror came flooding back, and the tears came again.
The evening that we reported on President Reagan's speech at the memorial service for the seven heroes, the executive producer for the 630 network newscast thought it would be a nice idea for us to have little 15 to 20 second shots from the ceremony to lead into each commercial. I had no objection to the idea, but I remember getting into an argument with Paul over one of the shots which he chose. It was a two-shot of a parent and child of one of the crew. The child, a teenage girl, was crying uncontrollably. I objected to the use of the shot, complaining that it smacked of voyeurism. Paul overruled me, pointing out that the whole nation was crying, that that was part of the story, that even I had cried. I have always regretted not being able to verbalize what I have since come to realize. Yes, Paul was right; the nation's grief was an important part of the story. But a family's grief is NEVER a news story, and never SHOULD be a news story. The news was not that the children of Dick Scobee were crying; the news was that Charlie Riggs was crying, and that people in the street on the day of the catastrophe were crying. A better shot would have been of someone crying unrelated to the families, a member of the honor guard, or a high-ranking offficial. But somehow I couldn't articulate that at the time, and the shot went on the air. I have always regretted that.
The first successful shuttle launch after the Challenger explosion was a powerful and unnerving experience for me. I remember this time I was alone at home. It may have been on a day off for me, or a weekend; I'm not sure. When the ship cleared that psychological hurdle of separation from the solids, I sobbed with relief. It was very healing; I have never had a problem watching a shuttle launch since, though I am always a little tense during those first two minutes, as is I am sure a lot of the nation. I'm not sure what I've taken from the whole experience personally, but it was certainly one of those events that helped shape me emotionally.
If you wish to contact me, you may do so at