Where were you when the Challenger exploded? For many in Generation X, Jan. 28, 1986, was the moment childhood innocence shattered — much like JFK’s assassination defined a generation before them.
I recently interviewed Mississippians with powerful connections to the tragedy.
Jane Merchant, a ninth-grade teacher from West Point, was one of five Mississippi finalists in NASA’s “Teacher in Space” program. She lost that opportunity to Christa McAuliffe — who would perish just minutes after liftoff. “I wanted to see if birds could fly in zero gravity,” said Merchant. She was teaching when a secretary with tears in her eyes delivered the devastating news.
Astronaut Ronald McNair, who died in the explosion, had worked closely with Jackson’s Russell C. Davis Planetarium on a 1984 film project. The planetarium later named its theater in his honor.
Stennis Space Center’s Robert Bruce, then a young engineer, remembers watching the smoke trails on a TV feed after someone announced “an anomaly.” The disaster prompted NASA to ramp up engine testing, and Bruce led the development of a third rocket test stand at Stennis in 1987.
Others remember exactly where they were. Simon Hall, a sixth-grader at St. Andrew’s, had just moved from England. Watching the launch in class, he was stunned. “There was a fireball, and then the white smoke filled the screen. It looked like a crablike monster had devoured our brave astronauts.”
Hall never watched another shuttle launch again.
“It seemed like in a single moment, my childhood innocence had been lost.”
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