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There are certain events in history that make people remember where they were when they heard about them. The dates that correspond with the events are sometimes all you have to say to illicit that response. December 7th, 1941, means the attack on Pearl Harbor. November 22nd, 1963, means JFK was killed in Dallas. September 11th, 2001, means the Twin Towers have been attacked. January 28th, 1986, is another one of those dates; where were you when you heard the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded just 73 seconds after lift-off in Florida? WOR national correspondent Rory O’Neill appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to mark the 40th anniversary of the most calamitous day in the history of America’s space exploration program.
O’Neill discussed with host Larry Mendte why people who were alive that day remember the significance of the tragedy: “Absolutely one of those generational defining moments: where you were when JFK was shot, where you were when Challenger exploded, where you were on 9/11. It’s just one of those things that identifies Generation X, and we remember the words of Ronald Reagan, we remember ‘Go with throttle up’, being the last communication, and certainly, as you said, a sharp memory for a lot of people, because also, so many more children were watching the events unfold that day, as they were launching the first teacher into space (civilian Christa McAuliffe).”
The Challenger launch had been delayed a couple of times before the fateful decision was made to go ahead; O’Neill addressed the effect that had in the lead-up to the disaster: “A big part of it was this countdown fever, this pressure to launch. And in this case in particular, there were several delays beforehand, and scrub after scrub after scrub, and there was so much attention with the teacher being on board; was there a pressure to say, ‘Just try to launch the darn thing!’ because every scrub makes NASA look like they’re incompetent, which they’re not.”
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