I was walking across the newsroom, headed to my desk at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and saw two of the row of TVs over the city desk showing the launch. I stopped and watched for maybe 10 seconds, then Challenger exploded. Since as the aviation reporter on staff I was the closest thing to a NASA reporter we had, I turned to the newsroom secretary, told her to tell the editors when they came in that I was on my way home to pack a bag and head south to Houston. I never even made it to my desk that day. Spent the next few days in Clear Lake. It was like being in a zombie movie. Everybody down there was walking around with red, vacant eyes and bent shoulders. Sadness and the deep sense of overwhelming loss pervaded every conversation, whether it was with NASA people I interviewed, their bosses at news conferences, waiters/waitresses in the restaurants, the desk staff at my hotel, or the guy filling his car at the gas pump next to mine. Gut-wrenching for so, so many folk. I covered the Columbia disaster aftermath in southeast Texas for USA TODAY 17 years later. The locals down there weren’t as saddened as all those NASA-adjacent folks in Clear Lake had been, but they too were deeply affected. However, the local college kids were almost giddy about scavenging pieces of shuttle debris (it was everywhere you looked… from dime sized bits to the nose cone that was the size of a box truck). Both incidents showed me that no matter how complacent we can become about “routine” space missions, space exploration can at key moments dominate our thoughts like almost nothing else but maybe a significantly military action like a war or the capture of Saddam Hussein/killing of Bin Laden.
Dan Reed From: Robert S. Distler via Mifnet <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 6:32 PM To: [email protected] Cc: Robert S. Distler <[email protected]> Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 75254] Re: 40 Years After Challenger Along with Bill Waltrip, I was on a Piedmont flight from Newark to Greensboro, for a meeting with Piedmont at its head office in Winston-Salem, following its takeover of Empire, with which Pan Am had a code-sharing agreement. Enroute, the captain passed on the news of the Challenger disaster, and when we arrived at GSO, all eyes were on every available television monitor covering the accident. A din of silence in the airport was something I especially remembered. Our meeting went on as scheduled, but in a somber mood, and we returned to Newark later that evening. Bob Distler From: David Wardell via Mifnet <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, 28 January, 2026 15:26 To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Cc: David Wardell <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 75250] 40 Years After Challenger https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/article/the-challenger-shuttle-disaster-that-killed-7-crew-members-was-40-years-ago-what-happened-and-how-theyre-being-remembered-220831002.html I recall the event and where I was vividly. I was certainly in no position to have predicted the disaster, but I had been silently concerned about the Laissez-faire attitude surrounding the shuttle program. I feeling I've experienced from other space programs of late. Where were you on this day in 1986, and do you have specific memories? Old Man Wardell
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